Once upon a December
by pagan-writter-all-da-way
Summary: The revolution, left not Romanov alive. But Dimitri is determined to earn the reward for bringing the princess back to her Grandmother, the Empress Marie. Anya is determined to find her family. She will not be called Anya the orphan till her dying die! By fate or coincidence their paths got entangled, and now that they are part of each other's life, the story's end is up to them.
1. chapter 1

**Hi sweethearts! You see, recently I saw the film Anastasia, I was surprised that there was no tale nor book behind and decided I would have to do one myself. If you like it, please do leave reviews, they make me happy :)**

Our story starts with a music box set on a brocaded red pillow.

It is a little box that will be handled by a small pair of hands. Made of wrought gold shaping little flowers, small pearls outline the border between gold and green velvet that precedes the lid.

A necklace with an emerald flower and Together in Paris wrought on its back is the destined companion and key to the music box.

It was a farewell gift from a grandmother to her beloved granddaughter, and so the butler who carried the gift was very careful in his every movement while carrying the pillow in which the music box sits on to his mistress, for he knew that where anything to happen to the present she had ordered her personal jeweler to craft for her grandchild what the mistress would first want would be his head.

He raced out from the front door, careful to balance his precious cargo on the pillow, its fragility playing with his nerves and wills himself not to sigh in relief when, finally! he sees the horse-drawn carriage standing outside.

An escort of Cossacks waited with its impatient horses for the carriage to move, it was so very cold outside, poor horses he thought while he saw steam shooting from their nostrils, he understood their hooves prancing, they surely were trying to regain some warmth.

The Empress Marie, stood beside the carriage door, dressed in red, gold and black full evening clothes. He bowed to her and presented the box, and she took it from the pillow and put it carefully in her beaded clutch.

Then he retreated and fought just for a little more time the urge to get back inside, where it was warm.

A footman opened the carriage door, and the empress climbed inside. As soon as the door was closed, the carrige took off, preceeded by the thundering Cossack horses.

The butler was then able to sigh at last, steam shooting from his own nostrils and mouth.

And, finally! he went back inside.

Marie's carriage raced through the street in San Petersburg's night, her honor guard of horsemen cutting a path ahead for her.

There was a time, not very long ago, when we lived in an enchanted world of elegant palaces and grand parties.

Her carriage reached its destination and the gates swung open for her.

The palace was lit up with a celebration, its guests streaming inside with their opulent clothes, and as always a sense of rightness and pride flowered in her belly when they all bowed to her carriage which was pulling up.

The year was nineteen hundred and sixteen...

Music poured out from inside when the doors were opened to her. Even the dancing couples bowed to her.

And my son Nicholas, was the Czar of Imperial Russia.

It was a Fancy Dress party and all the attendants were dressed in 17th century costumes, waltzing couples filled the main hall.

She liked the orchestra, and the feeling of greatness that emanated from the whole palace, but what she liked the most from being there, was not the opulence of the palace, was not the golden shine of everyone and everything, no. What she loved the most was the joyful look on her son and granddaughter's faces, they were dancing and playing and it brought warmness to her heart to see them so happy.

"Hello darling!"

We were celebrating the three hundredth anniversary of our family's rule...

"Go, greet your grandmama little devil." Nicholas whispered playfully to his youngest and laughed when her response was sticking out her tongue mockingly.

"Oh Papa!" She said before running off to her grandmother.

And that night, no star burned brighter than that of our sweet Anastasia, my youngest granddaughter. She begged me not to return to Paris - so I had a very special gift made for her. To make the seperation easier for both of us.

Through a secret opening in the wall behind the Empress's chair, a servant boy of no more than ten years leaned out to eavesdrop.

The Empress and her granddaughter chatted for some time, that kind of chat that one can only have with a child that warms your heart because it' sin credible that someone can be so innocent and have such a pure heart.

The exchange of presents was started by Anastasia, who gave her a drawing she herself had made, Marie felt her lips curling in a loving smile at her granddaughter's gesture.

And then it was her turn to hand her her present, her little girl gasped enchanted by its beauty.

"For me?! Is it a jewelry box?!" While she shouted expressing her gratitude, the butler caught the spying boy.

"Dimitri!" shouted the man angrily, as if this wasn't the first time he had caught the boy spying on the royal family. "You belong in the kitchen!" And with that stated, he dragged him quickly into the secret door while he protested:

"Let go!"

"Look." Said Marie, who had not noticed what happened behind her back, and took out the key to the music box, as it had the shape of a necklace she put it on the back of the said music box in order to wind it and show her granddaughter the true function of her gift.

"It plays our lullaby!" She whispered, more for the intimacy of the moment than for trying to keep anyone of hearing what she was saying to her grandma.

"Mmhmm, you can play it at night before you go to sleep. And pretend that it's me singing." Neither of them could keep themselves from singing the stanza that the music box was playing. It was too much of a temptation for them.

On the wind,

Cross the sea ,

Hear this song and remember.

Soon, you'll be home with me.

Once upon a December.

Ended the sound, Marie gave her the key and urged her to read the surprise she had prepared for her.

"Read what it says."

"'Together in Paris.'" Anastasia had some trouble seeing what she had to read but when she saw it, excitement poured through her veins. "Really? Oh, Grandma."

Excited herself as well, Marie smiled and nodded at her as gracefully as gracefulness went before embracing her.

But we would never be together in Paris. For a dark shadow had descended upon the house of the Romanovs. His name was Rasputin. We thought he was a Holy Man. But he was a fraud, power-mad and dangerous.

Suddenly the lights fell off and the crowd went silent and parted before a dark figure. A bat swooped down, landing on the dark figure's shoulder.

People fell back in fear and surprise, crushing champagne glasses underfoot.

The figure reached the Tsar, who stood firm against him. Nicholas was scared to the very core of his soul but no one would be able to tell, for he had practiced all his life the art of not letting his feelings show on his face.

"How dare you return to the palace?!" He spat angrily.

"But I am your confidante." He responded mockingly.

"Confidante, ha, you are a traitor." He spat again. "Get out!!" He yelled. He wanted that man out of his hospede. Out!

"You think you can banish the Great Rasputin? By the unholy powers vested in me, I will banish you with a curse!" Rasputin shouted.

Again the crowd gasped in fear.

"Mark my words." He whispered dramatically. "You and your family will die within the fortnight. I will not rest until I see the end of the Romanov line, for ever!" He shouted and raised a sickening green reliquary, which shoot a green lightning to the Chandelier above his head, which crashed to the floor.

When light was restored, Rasputin was gone.

Consumed by his hatred for Nicholas and his family, Rasputin sold his soul for the power to destroy them.

Once alone, in his lair, he put his curse on motion.

"Go fulfill your dark purpose, and seal the fate of the Tsar and his family once and for all."

Green smoke wisps came from the top of the Reliquary, assuming the form of Rasputin's minions.

From that moment on the spark of unhappiness in our country was fanned into a flame that would soon destroy our lives forever.

The Minions attacked the chain holding the gate shut, breaking it, and letting communist demonstrators pour into the palace, bricks smashed the glass windows of the palace, crowds with rifles stormed the palace grounds. The revolution was on.

The Romanov family was in bed then, and so they had to hurry in their nightclothes, half asleep and running down a hallway not entirely sure of what was happening or if it was a nightmare but knowing it would not end well.

"Hurry children!" Was shouting the Tsar, when suddenly, Anastasia stoped in her tracks, as her family continued down the hallway.

"My music box!"

"Anastasia! Come back, come back! Anastasia!" Marie tried to stop her from running back to get it, but she was unable to do it so in the end she ended up following her.

Once in her bedroom, Anastasia grabbed her music box with Marie rushing in at her back.

Shots were being heard when from the wall panel a boy emerged, none less than the eavesdropper himself, Dimitri!

"Please hurry! Come this way, out the servants quarters."

"Hurry Anastasia!"

Marie entered the secret doorway, and Dimitri shoved Anastasia in behind her, accidentally knocking the music box out of her hand.

"My music box!" She exclaimed.

"Go, go!" And just as he had pushed her through the door, angry revolutionaries came into the room.

"Comrades, in here!" He exclaimed, his voice rusty and terrifying. Soon, Dimitri knew he had reasons to fear them, because before asking they would act. And with that philosophy on mind one of them, the bigger one of course, slapped him hard before asking:

"Where are they boy?" The who were where, was implicit. Maybe, he took one too many seconds to answer because out of patience the men knocked him to the floor with the butt of his rifle.

"Uh, ah." Chin bleeding and on the floor, Dimitri reached unnoticed for the princess's music box. He could not let them take it, it had been hers and they would not care for it. It had been hers and it may be the only thing in the world that he would ever have from her.

With the palace in flames behind them, Marie ran with Anastasia across the path of ice and snow that was in the their way before the train station. It was cold, so very cold, it soaked through their skin, to their very bones. So cold Anastasia was trying her best not to cry, because she was a big girl and a princess and princesses are stone cold and unmovable and gracefully proper no matter what. Or so said her nurses.

They were crossing the ice under the bridge that cold had formed, and Anastasia was cold and tired of running and she couldn't remember why she was running and tried to slow the pace her grandmama had set.

"Grandmama!" She was about to tell her just that, that she was tired and cold and wanted to sleep because she had no more resolve to be a big girl-princes and be stone-cold and so on, but her grandmama answered faster than the words that were trying to get out of her mouth.

"Keep up with me, darling!" Anastasia was on the verge of crying and looked back to her home in flames and thought she understood from what she was running but not why they were still running, the fire would not reach them, would it?

It was then when she saw him, the culprit of what was happening. Rasputin.

"Yaeee!"

"Ahh!" She screamed in terror.

"... Ya... ha.." the man was holding her by the leg and she felt like an encaged animal, she was anguished, and tired, and scared and she wanted nothing but to get out, for him to let go, and she promised to herself that if she got loose of him she would run all her grandmama wanted her to run and would not even waste time in looking back.

"Rasputin!" Marie exclaimed.

"Let me go, please!" The ice was starting to brake and that made the situation even scarier.

"You'll never escape me, child, never!" His voice was mad, utterly and completely mad. And Anastasia wished she could forget she had ever heard him pronounce one single word of that sentence or any other.

"Oh, let me go!" She cried.

And then, miraculously the ice broke beneath him and he fell into the river. Anastasia wrenched herself free, and saw Rasputin thrashing about in the water. Anastasia was sure she would never get that image from her memory, she was going to die with that horrible moment printed in her retinas, the moment in which she saw a man drowning and could not help but feel relief because he had not taken her with him and he would never be able to encage her again.

In his final moment, he called out to his bat.

"Bartok!" He called, as if expecting that little bat to help him.

"Master!" He answered not fully understanding.

"Bartok!" He called him again.

"Oh ..." said pityly the bat. He could do nothing for his master.

Rasputin's fingernails digged into the ice, trying to hold onto something. But he could find nothing and was slowly dragged under, he tried one last desperate reach out of the water, but it was useless and he was sucked under by the current.

The only thing left from Rasputin, was the Reliquary slowly rolling away from the hole in the ice. Bartok, the bat, swooped down, scoop it up, and disappeared into the dark night.

Once in the train station, confusion was the general feeling that enveloped the place and the people in it, everyone was desperate to get on the train. As if that, was the only train that would ever take them out of Russia and the chaotic revolution that was coming. And maybe it was. Was it or not, everyone there decided to believe that was the only chance they had to escape what was to come, including the Great Empress Marie and her granddaughter Anastasia, who were fighting their way through the frightened crowd.

"Anastasia hurry, hurry!!" A good hearted passenger pulled Marie on board of the train but Anastasia was out of reach for him, so he could not drag her with her grandmother, she ran, madly and desperately she ran to catch up with the train that was starting to move.

"Grandmama!!"

"Here take my hand. Hold on to my hand!" Marie, was even more desperate and frightened than her, for she knew that if she was not able to pull her granddaughter with her, her little girl would be lost for ever. Anastasia managed to reach up and take Marie's hand and Marie thought that they would do it.

"Don't let go!" Anastasia cried. But her palm was sweated and she had no more strength in her, and as the train really started to move, her small hand slipped from her grandmama's grasp and Anastasia fell out of the frame.

"A-Anastasia!" Marie half cried half yelled as if her voice would levitate the little body of her granddaughter and bring her to her arms.

Anastasia stumbled, and hit her head on the ground.

"Ah!" The world, the cold and the people spiraled and black took over everything. She wished as the darkness enveloped her, that she could forget this horrible horrible night.

"Anastasia!" Marie's voice broke, she could not let her dear child there! She could not! She tried to jump off the train, but other passengers held her. And she watched impotently as the view of her granddaughter was obscured by that sea of confusion, despair and humanity that was then disappearing in the distance.

So many lives were destroyed that night. What had always been was now gone forever. And my Anastasia, my beloved grandchild ... I never saw her again.


	2. A Rumor in St Petersbrg

TEN YEARS LATER

Winter up in Russia is cruel. The sky is hideously grey, the floor white and sometimes brown when the snow gets dirty. And cold, so cold you would rather burn in hell that stand that horrible coldness that will track you down no matter where you hide.

The revolution, that took place just ten years ago had promised so much, in fact it had promised so much that it was enough to make the Russian people believe that winter would not be that cruel because everything would be so much better that winter would not hurt as much.

Poor, starved and ragious Russian people believed it. Even the leader revolutioneers believed it as well.

And everyone knew that the first years would be hard, but everyone thought prosperity would come along sooner or later.

But then, comrade Lenin died, and comrade Stalin took power, things grew worst. People were working more for less!

Officially everything was more than fine and eventhough lots of Russian people became deeply fanatic of Stalin, there were still people who dreamed of the good old times. People who missed the Tsar times.

Of course they could not say it, for it would be traition but it could not be helped.

Life in St. Petersburg was gloomy, gray and bleak and working so much with not money enough to pay for a decent shelter for the cold was a great source of unhappiness for those who remembered the pre-revolution times with fondness.

Gossip, was a natural way of getting through the post Revolution days.

On the street, there was an old gossip that did never die, and it always started the same.

"Have you heard? Although the tsar did not survive one daughter may be still alive, the Princess Anastasia! Comrade, what do you suppose?" It always ended the same as well.

"A fascinating mystery! But please do not repeat!"

It was rumor, almost a legend, and certainly a mystery. Something whispered in an alleyway or through a crack. The rumor was so old then that it was part of St. Petersburg's history.

Of course, it was whispered as well, what a royal sum, her royal grandmama would pay to anyone who could bring her princess back.

Such an ample reward was bound to innumerable tricks give birth, which is why now this story turns to a seedy corner of the town, where black marketers ply their wares. And some were still selling remnants from the ransacked palace.

There, a tall, fat and good-hearted ex noble man called Vladimir, waited nervously while Dimitri, haggled with a scary looking gangster.

"Psst! over here! Fell off the truck, Big bargain!" A marketer yelled trying to get some attention, and Vlad was so distracted by this and his own nervousness that he did not notice that Dimitri had finished with his business until he hears him whistle.

"Vlad!"

"Dimitri! I've got my part done."

In the background the black market's noise could still be heard behind their conversation.

" A ruble for this painting! it's Romanov, I swear!"

"Count Yusonov pajamas comrades, buy the pair!"

"I got this from the palace! it's lit'so with real fur." Said a marketer holding a ratty fur hat.

"It could be worth a fortune, if it had belonged to her!" Someone mean whispered.

"Well Dimitri, I got us a theater." Said Vlad excitedly.

"Everything's going according to plan." He said contentedly. "All we need is the girl. Just think, Vlad, no more forging papers, no more stolen goods. We'll have three tickets out of here. One for you, one for me and one for Anastasia." He said grinning mischeviously. "Bless this rumor! Because it's the princess anastasia who will help us fly! You and I, friend, will go down in history! We just have to find a girl to play the part, and teach her what to say, dress her up and take her to Paris. Can you even imagine the reward her dear old grandmama will pay? Who else could pull it off but you and me! We'll be rich!"

"Yes, we will!" Vlad said contagied by Dimitri's excitedness.

"We'll be out!" Dimitri kept dreaming.

"Out at last!"

"And St. Petersburg will have some more to talk about!" They said at unison just before bursting out laughing.

"Yaah ..."

"Yaah, this must be the biggest con in history!"

"And who knows if the Princess Anastasia is alive or dead?"

"Who knows, my friend? We might as well find her!"

Behind that sentence, there was some wishful thinking that a Dimitri did not want to talk about.

Because some old forgotten part of Dimitri did wanted to find the Princess, the real one.

How could he not?

He could lie to himself, lie to the world, lie to whomever he wanted to lie.

But the truth was that he was raised in the same palace the Princess Anastasia was raised. And he could not count how many times the Cook told him

'Princesses don't marry kitchen boys!'

When he was younger, carefree and innocent, he dreamed to prove the Cook wrong, he dreamed of finding the Princess alone and talking and playing with her, he dreamed she would fall in love with him and she would marry him.

He had fallen for her the very first time he had saw her when he was five or six years old and she was a tiny little thing that he wanted to squeeze with a hug, like the ones papa gave to mama when they were happy.

He could remember them so clearly, even though it had been fiveteen years since their death. They were always happy. And he had wanted just that with the Princess.

He had been so innocent back then!

Some part of him still wanted that, though. It made not sense at all and Dimitri made it a point not to pay attention to that childish irational part of his mind.

But the wishful thought that he would somehow find her, if she was alive, and make her fall in love with him, convincing her somehow not to choose the life of a princess which she had for some unknown reason neglected for ten years and marry him, would always remain there, in the back of his head, making him want to slap himself for being so, so... So stupid! So childish and so hopeful for such an impossibility.

"Let's get to the theatre, Vlad."


	3. A Journey to the Past

Anya was eighteen since last week, or so she thought because as she knew not her true birthday and what she had, was the day she got to the orphanage.

Mrs Phlegmenkof had taken her time to remember when her birthday was, but as soon as she realized that one of her orphans was off age and the government did not pay her for having her in her home, she rushed to nearest factory to get the girl a job so that she could sustain herself and no one could accuse her of leaving an orphan to herself with no work nor references.

Since the day before, when she came back from getting her a job, Mrs Phlegmenkof repeated like a parrot that she was a thorn on her side and she should be grateful for all she had done for her.

Anya thought that pestering her was the old woman's strategy to get her out of the orphanage by her own means and without waiting for the next day to stop being a loss of money.

When she woke up that day, she took a cold but much needed bath, she washed her hair with eggs, a luxury she normally couldn't indulge in, but as it was her last day in the orphanage, it was tradition to have a last trait, for what awaited out of the walls of the orphanage was to be hard and the orphans deserved something good before that. That's what Mr. Phlegmenkof always said, Mrs Phlegmenkof on the other side...

Well, she was still waving her hand, saying dramatical good byes and stuff to the orphans she had grown up with, when Mrs Phlegmenkof dragged her out of the door.

She shivered, it was so cold outside! Inside there was not much of a difference, but at least the wind did not hit her face! Her ragged clothes were to no use to warm her.

She could see the orphans, there was little Petra sending kisses from the window, and Niko waving his hands exaggeratedly, trying to call her attention.

"I got you a job in the Fish Factory. You go straight down this path till you get to the fork in the road, go left - are you listening?" She said when she noticed that the girl was still waving her friends good bye.

"Bye, bye everybody, I'm listening Comrade Phlegmenkof."

"You've been a thorn in my side since you were brought here."

"He, hey."

"Acting like the Queen of Sheba... instead of the nameless no account you are!" She chastised her.

"And for the last ten years I've fed you, I've clothed you. I've kept a roof over your head!"

She stopped her discourse on track when she noticed that Anya was imitating her disrespectfully.

"How is it you don't have a clue as to who you were before you came to us but you can remember all that?"

"I do have a clue to–" she protested.

"Ugh! I know!" Said Mrs Phlegmenkof pulling at her necklace.

"'Together in Paris." She read sarcastically. " So, you want to go to France to find your family, huh?" she laughed at her.

"Mmm."

"Little Miss Anya, it's time to take your place in life." She made a pause, took breathe while Anya gasped indignantly and said "in life and in line, and be grateful too."

"Oh." Laughing, she pushed her to the gate and slammed it shut when Anya was out of it.

"Together in Paris!" She saw her off still laughing and coughing, "Be grateful!" She added.

Mrs. Phlegmenkof was the devil, she was sure. Anya had stopped asking herself why was she so heartless since she was about twelve. She just accepted it like some natural law, like the coldness of winter or the stupidness of most of humanity.

"'Be grateful, Anya'." She mimicked her, that cow! Oh she was grateful. "I am grateful! Grateful to get away." Indeed, at least she would never have to fight with that wrenched woman again.

Her boots sank into the newly fallen snow, but soon she became accustomed to it and ignored it enough to get deep into her thoughts so she could forget that she was cold and uncomfortable with that damned snow that had nothing better to do than being a nuisance for her and not letting her walk properly.

Of course she would miss the little ones, little Petra would always held a piece of her heart, oh the thing was so tiny! So cute and had such a big heart that matched her big blue innocent eyes. She dreaded to think she would be alone at Nasha's mercy, oh her poor little thing! Nasha would take advantage of her surely, but at least Nasha's dead line was near as well, so her cutie would not suffer her much.

And Niko? He had been a baby when she met him, she had been in the orphanage for half a year when he appeared at the doorstep. He used to cry all day, but when she neared him, he would look at her with a spark of mischief in his big grey eyes that occupied half his face, he would stop crying and she would hold him and she would take him with her. He was all cheeks and eyes.

Oh her dear kids! Anya wished she could turn back, open the gates and hug her fellow orphans, take them with her so she would not be alone on her journey. But that would be irresponsible for she could not maintain them but still she wished she could hold onto the... kind of family she had created there.

She almost didn't notice she had come to the fork in the road. One sign pointed to 'Fisherman's Village' and the other sign pointed to 'St.Petersburg.' She should have just turned to the left and be done with it. She should have walked to that village enter into the factory where her new employer would be waiting for her but, she could not bring herself to do that.

She did not want to be Anya the Orphan forever. Maybe it was the idea of being known as Anya the Orphan till the end of her life, as she had no surname to add to her name nor money to attract any men, orphan may as well be her surname to her very end!

But, if she went right...

What would happen if instead of going to 'Fisherman's Village' she went to St. Petersburg? Instinctively she touched her necklace, could it be possible? Maybe the person who gave her that necklace was still in Paris, waiting for her to appear, maybe it was her mother, or her father, or an aunt, maybe it was some souvenir from a past trip.

Who knew? She had been found the day after the revolution, maybe her family had fled that night to Paris or maybe they were somewhere across the sea. She had spent ten years theorizing about it but somewhere deep down she knew that there was at least someone looking for her.

And Paris, was her first clue to be found, because she also knew that whomever had given her that necklace must have loved her. And maybe she would never find her family but she would never forgive herself if she did not try at least.

"This is crazy! Me go to Paris...?" She said to no one in particular, she just liked talking to herself.

She tilted her head skyward and closed her eyes in prayer. She! She who had ran out of prayers after years of nothing and more nothing. What was she expecting? Why would suddenly whomever was up above there bother to answer her if he or she had never bothered before.

"Send me a sign, a hint, anything." She shouted to the sky, sitting on the cold snow, waiting to have some courage and follow the path she knew she had to follow, and then practically out of the snow a dog came bounding up to her and grabbed her scarf.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" She called him, she stood up trying to recover her scarf. It was freezing! It took the dog to prance a few feet away, bark, run a few steps, turn and bark again for Anya to understand that he wanted her to follow him.

"I don't have time to play right now, OK. I'm waiting for a sign." She explained playfully.

She closed her eyes again for a second. The dog, with the scarf in his mouth ran down the right fork. He stoped, turned and barked at Anya. "Would you give me that? Could you, would you please leave me alone?" She was pleading to a g

Dog. Great, she thought exasperated, could she get any more pathetic? "Stop, give me that back, gi ... gi ... Oh!!!" Yes, she could, she thought while falling on the snow.

And it was right then and there, that Anya got the revelation of her life, there after having fallen on her butt on the cold winter snow.

"Oh... Oh, great. A dog wants me to go to St. Petersburg." Well, at least it was a sign, wasn't it? "Okay... I can take a hint." With that said, Anya too her first step towards St. Petersburg.

Almost immediately she regretted it, if she went to St. Petersburg she would never ever see the orphans again, if she went there now she had no job to support herself, she could very well die of hunger with the little money Mrs. Phlegmenkof had given her.

But she couldn't turn back yet, now that she had started to walk that way she had to fight to find courage but she could not backtrack.

She had made her choice, she was scared out of her wits, but she would not change it.

In fact, as the distance between the fork and herself grew she started feeling more and more hopeful, forward there was a white immensity, behind there was nothing.

Anya picked the dog up.

"Oh you are so cute! Well, friend, how would like me to call you hmm?" He barked gleefully in response. "You know, that sounds quite like Pooka, do you want me to call you like that? One bark yes, two barks not." The dog barked just one time. "Pooka it is then!"

That white infinity turned into a canvas in which she could picture her past, the family she had once belonged, the warm home she desperately wanted, the love only a family could give. She was a dreamer, she could not help it.

On her way, she passed through a village, she looked with glints of melancholy in her eyes the families that were still out. Oh! How she wanted that for herself! How envious she felt of the children giggling and playing and calling their mama, and looking at her puppy, how envious she felt of that children who had a mother and a father to take care of them.

Once upon a time she had had all that, a warm home waiting for her, loved ones and a family to care for her. Through her orphan life she had always felt so, so incomplete. She knew that if she found her family that hole in some part of her soul would fill, and as she neared the town her hopefulness grew into anxiousness, maybe she would find them, maybe she would find a surname to match her name and a past to root her future.


	4. Once Upon a December

Yesterday, when she reached St. Petersburg it was already too late to go to the train station and she had just enough money to buy her ticket to Paris, therefore she couldn't find a place to sleep or a good part of her money would banish.

So in the cold damp snowy street in front of the train station she slept with Pooka hugged to her side as her only source of warmth. Surprisingly it was midday when she awoke, with her hair half frozen, her fingers numb and an imperious need to run a mile or two if that meant to warm up a bit. Of course as she hadn't eaten since yesterday she didn't have energy enough to run that mile.

Thank goodness she was Russian! Years of rationing food had used her to the emptiness of her stomach.

Nervous but excited all the same, Anya walked to the train station.

The place looked like a castle, a brown 'little'castle. It made her feel so little! It's sculptured walls fascinated her deeply. Looking at them she couldn't help but feel something.

Something strange, she didn't really know what, something like a pull in the back of her head, a something that reminded her of some unknown past, maybe her life before the orphanage, maybe some other life. A something that talked of music and dances, smiles and warmth, it talked of what could have been or what should have been.

Someone pushed her while passing by her side and she started paying attention to reality again. It's no time to daydream, Anya!

It took her half an hour and quite a lot of questions and instructions but finally Anya found her way to the ticket seller's window. The line was not very large, which was another surprise, perhaps it worked fast.

Whatever the reason, with Pooka in her arms and a smile on her face she stood stood at the end of the line and waited for her turn to come.

No. It definitely was not the fastness of the service that made the line so short.

"One ticket to Paris, please" she said once she finally reached the end of the line.

She didn't even know if the train went to Paris, but she just wanted to get out of Russia and eventually get to Paris by some other train.

"Exit visa?" Exit what?

"Exit visa?" She asked, hoping she had misheard and she didn't need anything else in order to get to Paris.

"No exit visa, no ticket." Anya fantasized for a second or two to shout her lungs off and make such a scene that damned man would give her her bloody ticket to Paris or Warsaw or wherever further that train line went and got her nearer to Paris. She had come all the way on foot and had lost possibly the only work she would be able to find in quite some time, for goodness's sake!

But she would never do that, she knew better than doing a tantrum like some capricious five year old.

And so the ticket agent hung the 'PEOPLE'S LUNCH BREAK' and slammed his shutters right in Anya's face, along with the entire row of ticket agents.

"Oh, hmm." Damned son of a dirty whore! I hope the bloody devil himself rips your sodding bollocks off in hell, you bloody bastard! Anya cursed him colorfully in her mind.

She wanted to cry, maybe all this had been a mistake, maybe she was still in time to turn back, go to the fish factory and say some excuse like that she was supposed to go that day and not the day before. Maybe...

A sweeper woman with her broom still in hand, approached her.

"Psss." She said to call her attention. "See Dimitri ... He can help." She whispered.

"Where can I find him?" She asked taken aback, not thinking much. I don't have to turn back, I don't have to work in a fish factory!

"At the old Palace, but you didn't hear it from me." She told her, even though she hadn't told her her name.

"Oh." She was waiting for some more information, like where the old palace was located but the old woman just said:

"Go, go, go, go." And Anya had no other option but to part in search for the old palace.

"Hmm, Dimitri." She whispered to herself confused but decided that if she had come that far she would get to the bottom.

Dimitri and Vladimir were sitting at a large table. On top of it, stacks of resumés were pressed through it. On his hand, Dimitri had an enormously long list of names that spilled out onto the floor in front of him.

He and Vlad had seen at least a hundred girl as between yesterday and the day being. It was awfully frustrating because none of the women they had seen was feet to be Anastasia.

Dimitri looked over to Vladimir before crossing the second to last name off the list. Useless, useless, useless!

"Nice, nice, very nice, yeah..." he said instead.

"And I look like a princess, and I dance like a feather." And my father was the tsar of Russia.

"... Okay, hmm, thank you, thank you. Next please!" Please let her be somewhat decent, she is the sodding last in the list!

Unfortunately when the last Anastasia wannabe stepped into the spotlight on the stage, Dimitri knew he need not see her to know that clearly, she was not right for the role.

"Grandmama. It's me, Anastasia..." She took her coat off and rolled her hips just a bit as if instead of presenting herself to her long lost grandmother she was presenting herself on the corner's cabaret. Probably she came straight from there to the theater.

Dimitri and Vladimir, stared at her in amazement, not really sure if that was a joke or she really thought that was the way one would present onself to an elder woman. Or if she had confused this audition for something else. God knew it was not the first time.

Vladimir groaned and put his head down on the table, ready to cry of pure frustration.

"Oh, brother." Dimitri said before crossing her name.

Later, when they had left the theater and were heading down the street the tense silence was finally cut by Vladimir.

"That's it Dimitri. Game over. Our last kopeck gone for this flea-infested theater, and still no girl to pretend to be Anastasia!" Dimitri was even more frustrated than Vladimir was, after all the idea had been his, but he forced himself to be optimistic. Vlad was easily taken by optimism. He had that kind of personality that no matter how hard life hit him, he couldn't help but think that everything would turn up well in the end. And he knew life had hit Vlad hard, passing from a rich nobleman to some kopeckless no one was sure to be a blown on someone's optimism. And still Vlad was the epitome of optimism.

"We'll find her, Vlad. She's here somewhere, right under our noses." Dimitri grabbed Vladimir, just at the same second that Anya walked by his side and pulled out the music box. If he had just turned his head! His problems would have been solved. "Don't forget, one look at this jewelry box and the Empress will think we've brought the real Anastasia." He said confidently.

"I'm looking for the Catherine..." Dimitri bumped into her without even noticing.

"Excuse me." She said.

"Do you know where that is?" He hadn't heard her, he was still whispering conspicuously with Vlad.

"... And before she catches on, we'll be off spending the ten million rubles."

She must have asked a million strangers, but they all evaded her nervously, or told her that there was nothing there, it seemed that the only kindness she would ever receive there would be that old woman in the train station.

"There's nothing there. No, no there's no one living there, go on." They all said. And she was starting to believe that that woman had lied to her, had played some kind twisted joke on her.

It was late afternoon when she found the Catherine Palace, it was in ruins and doors were blocked. How could anyone enter there? She was tired and hungry and convinced that that women had laughed at her.

But, fate talked through Pooka again when the little dog jumped from her arms and ran through an opening at the bottom of the wood blocked door.

Anya called Pooka. She tried to look between the boards, trying to find Pooka inside, hoping she would not have to get in there to get him back, for she could not left him back, it was so easy to love a pet that you couldn't just leave it behind.

"Pooka, Pooka, Pooka where are you?" She called him and decided she would have to get into the palace to recover her dog, she pulled on one board, which seemed to think it was a good moment to come loose and make her she fall backward.

"Ow!"

On one palace bedroom the crash of her fall was heard. It was the one lit bedroom, still kind of clean, and warm from being used.

Vladimir and Dimitri were eating. Dimitri was startled by the noise and stood up. It could be anything, the police, the red army, some nosy neighbor who would want to turn them in.

"Did you hear something?"

"Mm, no." It was so much easier to convince one self that there was nothing out there, that there was no danger waiting out there to close its clutches on their throats. But still...

Anya entered the vestibule of the Winter Palace, with Pooka following her. No longer did she need to look for him now, it was her own curiosity what drove her to investigate the palace. She removed her scarf as she crossed the floor to stairs, it was cold, but she feared that she would trip and brake her neck.

She heard a noise towards the entrance, and she went up some steps. He followed her up the stairs, she didn't notice him then, maybe she thought it was a rat or something. Dimitri knew he should be throwing her out or scaring her off so she would not see him and turn him and Vlad in to the authorities for living in the old palace, but he was a curious person and he couldn't help it.

"Hello? Anybody home?" She asked but he kept quiet.

Anya was in the partially destroyed dinning room, she could see even in the darkness that it had been a beautiful place, there was still a table no one had bothered to clean not even to still what was there, and some unknown force dragged her to it.

A silver plate called her attention, it was broken, she didn't even know why that plate had called her attention but it did. It was covered in dust and she had to blow it away, for the plate to mirror her. While she looked at her reflex, she concluded that she looked more like a boy than she thought with that big coat.

Looking at the plate, that pull she felt before came back, a little stronger and just for one second she saw something, a kid dancing with her father.

"Bowls, plates, hmmm... This place it's ... it's like a memory from a dream." She said to no one in particular, but at least now she had Pooka so she wasn't the crazy girl talking to the air/herself, she was the crazy girl talking to her dog. What an improvement!

Wandering to the top of a huge staircase which lead down to the once grand ballroom, and stopping at a large landing half way down the steps, with the moonlight hitting the portrait of the deceased royal family with a ghostly glow; the pull in the back of her head, like some kind of laze that was trying to bring something to the surface, started pulling a river of versed words, a lullaby, sweet and nostalgic that poured out of her lips as flashes of memories she didn't even knew if were real or part of her imagination came along with it.

"Dancing bears,

Painted wings,

Things I almost remember.

And a song, someone sings,

Once upon a December..."

A bed, a chimney cracking with fire, an old eroded voice. The warmth of a forgotten childhood.

"Someone holds me safe and warm,

Horses prance through a silver storm.

Figures dancing gracefully, across my memory."

A father she was sure, she was seeing a loving father with his daughters. And a party, with gracious music and a whole orchestra. Ladies dancing with her, ladies who were close, so very close! She was dancing with them, she would swear upon her life she could see them, they were part of her imagination but her imagination was so vivid she had no trouble picturing the dancing couples on that once gran ballroom.

She could see the waltz so clearly! She herself was waltzing to the beat of her song. It had grown strong and the images that poured through her mind brought her to the splendid glory the ballroom had once had.

Someone holds me safe and warm,

Horses prance through a silver storm.

Figures dancing gracefully, across my memory.

It was so beautiful it had to be a memory, weather if it was from this life or some other, the fullness feeling had to be real.

Far away, long ago

Glowing dim as an ember.

Things my heart used to know,

Things it yearns to remember.

And a song, someone sings,

Once upon a December.

She fantasized she had a father to waltz with, sisters to dance with her playfully. She fantasized with a past long forgotten that she could not fully regain. But, then, when the song was finished, there was nothing left of her fantasy.

She was still the princess she dreamed to be, but when there were no more verses to pour from her mouth the nostalgic touch of the song she had sung turned over her, because everything was 'Once upon a December', a December very far away from this moment and what she had had once upon that December, was no longer hers.

However, for Dimitri, once her song was finished, the embeleso wore off quite quickly and the first thing that came out of his mouth was a:

"Hey!" The girl gasped and prepared herself to run away.

Dimitri and Vlad started running down stairs to reach her. Vlad's fat belly bouncing while he tried to climb down the stairs.

"What are you doing in here!" Dimitri yelled. The shock wore off of the girl and she started running to the stairs with Dimitri chasing after her.

"Hey ... hey! Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, hold on a minute. Hold on!" Finally the girl stopped running a ray of moonlight glowing directly in front of the picture of the Royal Family, and illuminating the girl as well. Frozen to the spot, Dimitri wasted no time on noticing the striking resemblance between the picture of Anastasia and the girl in front of him.

"Now, how did you get in he-here?" Dimitri asked, out of breathe.

"Excuse me child." Panted Vlad, who was in no condition to run what he had ran and was even more out of breath than Dimitri had been. As a smile started spreading across his lips as he elbowed his friend to make him notice.

"Vlad, do you see what I see?" He whispered excited.

"No." Dimitri was about to ask him how could he not see, when he remembered that Vlad saw next to nothing without his glasses, so he helped him to put them on and waited for his answer.

"Oh, yes, yes." Now, that's better.

"Hmm, a dog…" Dimitri said eyeing the animal, that jumped to his arms. He was no fan of dogs.

"Are you Dimitri?"

"... cute." He told to the dog, trying to contain the contempt in his voice. Dimitri handed the animal to Vladimir who did like dogs and then walked up the stairs to the girl.

"Perhaps, that depends on who's looking for him." He answered her.

"My name is Anya ... I need travel papers..." she whispered. This is just perfect! Dimitri thought. "They say you're the man to see even though I can't tell you who said that." There goes an innocent. Dimitri compared her to the picture as much as he could, for the picture featured a much younger Anastasia. But she was exactly the same. It was incredible! She was quite slender, yes. His eyes took the excuse of the comparison as an excuse to roam over where they pleased, and were they pleased! Boy, she was cute. Dimitri smiled again, circling her.

"Hmm, hmmm." He hummed appreciatively.

"Hey and why, why are you circling me? Were you a vulture in another life?" She didn't like being ogled to, then. Such a shame, he had quite liked ogling her.

"I'm sor...I'm sorry Enya." Ha! Sorry...

"It's Anya, Anya." She corrected him.

"Anya, it's just ... just that you look an awful lot like ... Never mind ... Now, you said something about travel papers?" Take it easy, don't be so obvious!

"Uh, yes ... I'd like to go to Paris..." this is just perfect!

"You'd like to go to Paris?" He was sure his smile was somewhat Cheshire Cat's like.

"Mhmm." She confirmed and Dimitri gave Vladimir a knowing excited look. But Vladimir was a bit distracted with the dog.

"Who is this here. Oh, oh, look. Oh, oh, he likes me."

"Nice Dog." Dimitri said, trying as hard as he could not scold Vlad, man! This was not serious.

"Oh, oh, it's marvelous. Aw! I love, I love, I love you." The worst part was that it reminded him of how Vlad had been with him when he was a little kid and he found him roaming through the ruins of the palace. 'You are so cute! Someone has to take care of such a tiny thing! Where are your parents boy? You don't have! Then I'll take care of you!' He should have been a father or a mother, he would have done a splendid mother had he been a woman.

"Let me ask you something, Anya was it ... Is there a last name that goes with that?"

"Well, actually ... This is going to sound crazy ... I don't know my last name. I was found wondering around when I was 8 years old." Could this be anymore perfect? It suited every sport of the story.

"And before that ... before you were eight?" He kept asking, some stupid old part of his mind screaming that this could really be her.

"Look, oh look, I know it's strange but I don't remember. I have very few memories of my past." A plan started to thread in his head with that.

"Hmm, that's, that's perfect." He whispered to Vlad, it was settled already, this was the girl to play the part of Anastasia and get the royal sum.

"Well, I do have one clue, however, and that is Paris." She kept talking .

"Paris." Dimitri repeated amazed by his good luck.

"Right. So, can ... so can you two, help me or not?" Dimitri tilted his head back for a moment to ask Vlad for the tickets.

"Hey, Vlad, Vlad tickets!" Vlad gave him tickets, which actually weren't the train tickets but Moscow Circus Tickets, but he turned to Anya all the same. "Ah sure would like to ... in fact, oddly enough, we're going to Paris ourselves."

"Ah, ah, and I've got three aw ... well, this one not ." Anya tried to grab the tickets.

"Oh, I..."

"Unfortunately the third one is for her, Anastasia." He gestured to Anastasia's portrait in the frieze. Anya looked up to it, he was crazy.

"Oh." The two men took Anya by one arm either and lead her to a portrait of the Empress.

"We are going to reunite the Grand Duchess Anastasia with her grandmother." Said Vladimir.

"You do kind of resemble her." Said Dimitri, holding back another cheshire's cat smile.

"The same blue eyes." Vlad started.

"The Romanov eyes." Dimitri added.

"Nicholas' smile." It was Vlad's turn.

"Alexandra's chin." Then it was Dimitri's.

"Oh, look she even has the grandmother's hands!" Said Vladimir taking her by the hand, but Anya quickly pulled her hand away.

" She's the same age, the same physical type." Dimitri commented lightly.

"Are you trying to tell me that you think that I am Anastasia?" Laugh played in her voice, it was ridiculous!

"All I'm trying to tell you is that I've seen thousands of girls all over the country and not one of them looks as much like the Grand Duchess as you do. I mean look at the portrait." He said matter-of-factly, exaggerating quite a bit, but she wouldn't know.

"I knew you were crazy from the beginning," she said to Dimitri, and then turned to Vladimir. "but now I think you are both mad." And with that, Anya started to walk away.

"Why? You don't remember what happened to you..." Dimitri started.

"No one knows what happened to her." Vladimir continued.

"You're looking for family in Paris." The young man said.

"And her only family is in Paris." Quickly added the older man.

"Ever thought about the possibility?" There it was, the tramp was set and now they just had to wait until their prey fell onto it.

"That I could be royalty?" She said somewhere between incredulous and hopeful.

"MmmHmm." They both nodded.

"Well I don't know ... it's kind of hard to think of yourself as a Duchess when you're sleeping on a damp floor. But sure, yeah, I guess every lonely girl would hope she's a Princess." It didn't take much for her to fantasize again with being a princess. Dimitri, seeing that all was turning out as it should, turned and started to walk away.

"And somewhere ... One little girl is. After all, the name Anastasia means "she will rise again". Vladimir said, exasperating his colleague who had to turn back from the way he had already started to drag him.

"Really wish we could help, but the third ticket is for the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Good luck." Anya sighed sadly, she couldn't believe this was it. That was the only help she would receive?

What if she actually was the princess? What if all her fantasies from earlier were really memories? What if not? They would still take her to Paris, right?

Anya as she fiddled with her necklace and looked at the portrait, she caressed it softly as if was something very dear to her. She looks up at the Empress's face as if looking for an answer, for something that told her that yes, she was her grand daughter.

"Hmm." They would go and if they did, gone was her last chance.

Meantime, Dimitri and Vlad were walking down the stairs.

"Why didn't you tell her about our brilliant plan?"

"All she wants to do is go to Paris. Why give away a third of the reward money."

"I'm telling you ... We're walking away too soon..." Vlad whispered to him.

"Not to worry, I got it all under control, All right.. but walk a little slower. " they walked a couple more of steps down when Dimitri started the regressive count with his fingers:

"Three ... Two ... One."

"Dimitri!" They heard her call him and he smiled victoriously.

"Ha, right in the palm of our hand." Dimitri turned and looked back at Anya on the top of the stairs.

"Dimitri, wait!"

"Di ... Did you call me?" He said as innocently as he could.

"If I don't remember who I am, then who's to say I'm not a princess or a duchess or a whatever she is ... Right?" She said nervously.

"Hmm ... Go on." He said.

"Yeah, and if I'm not Anastasia, the Empress will certainly know right away ... and it's all just an honest mistake." She was growing excited by the idea.

"Sounds plausible." Dimitri said.

"But if you are the princess, then you'll finally know who you are and have your family back." Said Vladimir mildly.

"You know, you know he's right! Either way, it gets you to Paris." Anya put her hand in his for a handshake. Dimitri, was a little taken aback, but he still shook it. Her hand was warm and it sent electric tingles through his skin.

"Right!" She said nervously.

"Right." He grabbed his hand, as if it had been burned. Maybe it had.


	5. In the Dark of the Night

"May I present her Royal Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia." Dimitri said playfully, and as he and Vladimir bowed the word 'Anastasia' echoed throughout the room, even the tapestries shuttered in response to the name, something was not right. But, as Dimitri, Anya and Vladimir were just humans they could not understand the sutil signs dark magic gave when awakening from a long forced slumber.

"Pooka we are going to Paris!" She said excitedly.

"The dog stays." Dimitri stated, he hated dogs and would not go anywhere with a dog near him.

"What are you talking about, the dog goes." Anya said stubbornly but he would have nothing of it.

"The dog does not go."

"I say he's going."

"I'm allergic to dogs." He invented, trying to convince her.

The breeze that filtered through the ruinous palace carried the echo of their conversation to a little balcony, lit by an almost fully melted veil where a white bat stood. A Reliquary glowed behind him, unnoticed, as he looked down at the trio below, smoke wisps ominously surged from its top behind the little bat.

"Anastasia. Yeah, just one problem there fella, Anastasia's dead. All the Romanovs are dead. They're dead, dead, dead, dead .." A raven shaped minion (which was quite similar to Rasputin, come to think of it) emerged from the Reliquary, and hovered beside Bartok, the bat. "... Am I right my friend. I mean, how could that be Ana..." suddenly, he saw that in fact he was really talking to someo-thing. And then realized whom/what he was talking to. "Aah ... YAAAAGH!!!" More minions poured forth from the Reliquary, eagerly trying to reach towards Anya but they disappeared in a puff of smoke inches from their unearthly home. "Oh, come on now. Am I supposed to believe that thing woke up after all these years just because some guy claims she's a Romanov?" The Reliquary glowed brightly, shaking violently, as if telling him that that of course was Anastasia. "Okay! Okay! I get-the message! Enough already with glowing and the smoke, people!" He took another look at Anya, she was far below and, amazed, he started to think that the Reliquary had not grown insane (could that thing grow insane?) but maybe... "If that thing's coming back to life it must mean Anastasia's alive." He finished startled by what he had just reasoned.

"Just leave the dog." Down there, Anastasia and that guy were still arguing about the dog.

"I am not leaving the dog." The princess said.

"... and that's her." He concluded.

"Come we've got a train to catch." Said the fat man. And with that, Anastasia and the two other guys exited the room and his sight.

Bartok was thinking about having a good nap or chasing something to eat, but the Reliquary took off and flew senselessly, making circle patrons in the air and dragging him with it.

"Whoa!!"

When the Reliquary decided it was time to dive straight through the floor, Bartok covered his eyes expecting the very worst. When they, he and that... thingy, crashed with what was below he felt some pain but surprisingly enough he was still alive and contained his breath while the Reliquary pulled him down into icy water. There was a lake under the palace?

Lake or not the Reliquary kept pulling him further and further down in the icy water until they hit the bottom of the lake and what they were diving through was the soil under the water, it seemed that it would continue until it crossed the whole earth and keep going until it reached the very sun.

"Mayday, Mayday. Hey I ooh, ooh,ooh, waah, ooh yuck, yuck, wow, help, oh,oh, oh, oh, hot it,s hot, aah, oh oh ... wow..." he was scared, didn't know what had gotten into that damned reliquary but he was not liking that mad speed one bit.

The Reliquary got to the Nether World that had once been Bartok's homeland. He didn't know it was possible to travel to the Nether World without a portal. Hmm.

Was that what he thought it was? Yes! That must be! The spherical cave in which he had been born! Oh, how he had missed his home! And the Reliquary was introducing him in that very place. Oh, he was getting nostalgic! Would mom still be there or would she be in uncle Rolf's house to spend this time of the century with the family?

Once inside the cave, he heard someone crashing around, trashing stalactites, oh boy! Mom would not like it if someone was spending the season in her house!

"Oh boy. Ow. what. Ow!! I tell you" Bartok complained, everything hurted. That Reliquary certainly did not know the meaning of delicacy!

"Who dares intrude on my solitude? Get out! Get out! Out!" Could that be? No, it couldn't! Humans didn't go to this part of the nether world when they died, he had been gone for ten years, surely it was not time enough to change the law!

But it was him, because the person who picked him up from the floor and squeezed the breath out of him was no other than Rasputin! His master!

"Bartok? Is that you?" There was a dash of hopefulness in the voice of his master.

"Ahh, Ooh...Master? Alive ...? You're…" Bartok couldn't believe it! Last time he had seen his master, he was drowning and being pushed underwater by the current! He couldn't be dead, the dead humans were on the other side of the nether world, but he didn't look very much alive.

"Yeah, In a manner of speaking!" He said as eyeball popped out of his eye sock and landed on his arms.

"Whoa, that fell right out of there sir." He commented.

"Sometimes happens." Maybe the law did really changed.

"Yeah! Woopsey!"

"I knew it! I could feel the dark forces stirring." He said while looking at him.

"I'm not surprised because I saw her. Anastasia ... Oh!" Wrong thing to say?

"Anastasia?! Alive?!!" He could not believe his curse had failed, how could it be possible?! He was so angered he didn't notice that his lips were popping off through his long beard, distracting the little bat that could not take his eyes of it. You didn't see someone taking while his lips are falling from his face everyday!

"Ah, sir, your lips they're, ah." He tried to tell him.

"That Romanov brat!" The master paid him no mind.

"Wow ... Yeah, ain't that a kick in the head. I guess a curse just ain't what it used to be, huh sir?" Rasputin, enraged, gripped him in one fist and squeezed for emphasis. Of course, the master could not understand that a curse he himself had done could fail.

"That's why..." Bardot could not quite breathe.

"Wow, wow..." He tried to tell him he was squeezing too much, but humans don't always control they strength, and the master wasn't an exception to the rule.

"... I'm stuck here in limbo!" His house was no limbo! At least he thought it was not, maybe it was? Oh he didn't know anymore! The master raised for the final blow and terror strikes him enough for the master to notice he was about to crush his poor bar.

"My curse is unfulfilled." He reflected flinging his hand, which was still gripping Bartok and disconnected from his body, hitting the wall, but until then he did not realize that his hand was gone.

Bartok, like the good servant he was, carried his master's hand over to him, who had collapsed filled with self-pity.

"Look at me." He cried. "I'm falling apart. I'm a wreck."

"Actually, considering how long you've been dead you look pretty good." He tried to cheer him up. But he still cried in self-pity. Oh, his poor master!. "Sir, you do, you do." He continued.

"Really?" He raised his head, truly flattered by his compliment.

"Sir, is this the face of a bat who would lie to you? Come on, for a minute there, you had your old spark back."

"If only I hadn't lost the gift from the dark forces, the key to my powers." It hit him then, he had it! He had had it for ten years! Quickly, Bartok picked up the Reliquary and wasted no time in showing him.

"What? You mean this Reliquary?" The master's eyes widened.

"Oh, where did you get that?" He shouted madly delighted.

"Oh, I found it..." Next to your dying place, sir, he had wanted to say, but the master interrupted him.

"Give it to me!" He shouted and did not wait for him a second to hand it to him that he grabbed it greedily.

"Alright, Alright, Don't get so grabby." He complained.

"My old friend, together again." But the master paid him no mind again, he was too busy stroking the Reliquary, holding it close and closing his eyes. "Ah, ha ha! Now my dark purpose will be fulfilled, and the last of the Romanovs will die!!" He shouted madly.

"Yeah..."

"In the dark of the night, my dear friend, I've been having nightmares of corpses tossing and turning, falling to bits. You want to know the worst part of it all?" He asked dramatically.

"I don't." Bartok said.

"It was me all alone, this is what I have been reduced to! I, once the most mystical man in Russia! The royals betrayed and that was their last mistake, but that girl got away and now I'm paying the price. It's her that's keeping me here. You understand Bartok?" He asked him, a disturbing spark glowing green in his eyes that made him nod and tremble a:

"Y-yes!"

"Revenge is what I'll get from her death and it shall be sweet for all the days I spent here in this hell hole! For I will not rest until she forever sleeps." Bartok could tell, from all the time he had spent with his master, that he was imagining all the ways in which he could obtain his revenge.

"Uhm..."

"My curse made each of them pay but she, and it's for time evil to find her. In the dark of the night, beware, just before dawn I'm awake and my curse shall find its completion when she's gone. My powers are slowly returning, soon I'll see her crawl, nightmares will torment her and she will know real terror, she's doomed, she'll be the end of the line. . " He was already fantasizing while talking. _He will never change, Bartok thought shaking his head._

"But... what are you..." he wanted to ask how would he do all that, if he was a rotting corpse in the nether world, but the master was still talking and it was useless to try and tell him something he would not listen to.

"Come, my minions, rise for your master and let your evil shine for me. Find her now, fly ever faster. Dasvidanya, Anya, your grace, farewell! Then, when you are banished from existance then and only then will I rest!" _I guess that's how._


	6. An old feeling

**Hola! Cómo están? No hablan español, no? Haha, well, uh here's the next chapter, you know I would really appreciate it if you would just leave some reviews it won't take much of your time and it will make me happy. Pleaaase.**

The plan was to take the train from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, from Warsaw they would go to Weimar Republic and from Weimar Republic they would go to Paris by sea.

Anya was warming up very slowly, she still needed her coat, but the heat in the train was quite nice.

Distractedly she looked at the upholster of the sofa she was sitting on. It was a brownish shade of red with embroidered golden flames. Through the window she could see the countryside, beautifully covered in white snow, like a bride, ready to marry the sky at sunset.

In front of her Vladimir was forging their travel papers, at his side he had a box in which he carried blue ink and his source of paper. Pooka was just next it, lying on his back. Playfully, he pushed the luggage that supported his open briefcase, as if asking Vladimir for some traits, in response the man tickled Pooka with the feather portion of his quelled pen happily.

Dimitri chose that moment to enter the train car with his suitcase in his hand and a smile dancing mischievously on his lips. He reached high above Anya to store his luggage there, after completing his chore, he went to sit next to his friend, without noticing the dog that was there, but soon enough Pooka growled and made himself noticed impending him to sit. Dimitri looked at a the older man, but he did nothing and since the animal still growled at him, he was forced to smile at Anya and quite indignantly sit next to her. Of course, his friend laughed at his disgrace.

"What, oh the mutt gets the window seat." He growled back at the animal. Next to him Anya fiddled with her necklace nervously, as if expecting him to turn his irritation on her.

"Stop fiddling with that thing! And sit up straight - remember – you're a Grand Duchess." Just because of that, he took his irritation with her, and focused on how it annoyed him her lack of compromise with her role, then he remembered she believed she was not playing any role, which annoyed him all the same.

"How is that you know what Grand Duchesses do or don't do." She said cheekily, sinkin in her seat just to bother him.

"I make it my business to know." He responded matter-of-factly while he aproached her enough to lower his voice, trying to coax her with his confidence and intimidate her a little, just to silence her.

"Oh." She brushed him off.

"Look Anya, I'm just trying to help. Alright?" Vladimir looked over at him and rolled his eyes at his terribly false attempt of amend. It was not fun if it ended like this.

"Dimitri..." she said with such an innocent voice that he would learn, was a bad signal.

"Mm hmm?"

"Do you really think I'm royalty?" She sat up straight and he was all too quick answering.

"You know I do."

"Then stop bossing me around!" She locked her eyes with his for one furious second and turned to the window like an offended kid.

"Well, she certainly has a mind of her own." The older man lifted his gaze to him a and threw the comment as if the situation was comical to him.

"Yeah, I hate that in a woman!" It was not true, but he himself was offended too. And she, the five year old, sticked her tongue out at him, before turning back to the window, as if he wouldn't notice. _How mature!_

Chuckling to himself, Vladimir exchanged the forged papers for a score card, in which all perspectives said that Dimitri on the losing side of the score. Defeated by a thirty to three punctuation.

Some hours passed in a flip, afternoon was reaching night and snow was again falling over a picturesque Russian landscape.

Anya was reading a Paris guide when Dimitri entered the compartment and sat before her. He stayed quiet for some time, gathering his thoughts, trying to make amends for real, since he did not want to do such a long journey with someone who would gladly push him off a cliff. He was going to ask her for a clean start.

"Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot." He said mildly, and soon she put her book down, looked straight at him and responded.

"Well, I think we did too." Short and sweet.

"Okay." He said pleased with the result he had gotten.

"But I appreciate your apology." _What?_

"Apology? Who said anything about an apology? I was just saying..." He! Apologizing! Ha! Hell would freeze first. He said sorry, of course, but sorry was quite meaningless and he used it whenever it was fit to do it, but apologizing... No. An apology was something more serious, it meant that one truly regretted something and he regretted nothing. "I was just saying that we..." she interrupted him.

"Please, don't talk anymore, OK? It's only gonna upset me." She said, and if it was possible to put in your voice the tone of a rolling pair of eyes, she had done it.

"Fine. I'll be quiet, quiet if you will. I'll, I'll be." And so, they assumed confrontational poses, ready for anything but to be quiet.

"Alright I'll be quiet." She rebuffed.

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine." And with that last 'fine' Anya and Dimitri sat with arms crossed, sulking in a perfect replica of two kids who had lost their favorite toy.

But Anya was not one to hold a gruff and soon, she was looking somewhat nostalgically out of the window.

"You think you're gonna miss it?" She broke the silence, waiting anxiously for him to reply so that she could tell him that she was going to miss it too, because she had grown up there and there was some much of herself that she was leaving behind.

"Miss what ... your talking?" But of course, he wouldn't do what she wanted him to do and instead gave her a sarcastic remark.

"No! Russia." She made herself clear.

"Nope." He said simply, as if all his life back there in the USSR meant nothing to him. As if he had absolutely nothing there, and even she, the one in search for her family had something dear in the USSR.

"But it was your home." She insisted.

"It was a place I once lived. End of story." He looked down and thought of all the things he wished to forget. 'Princesses don't marry kitchen boys' was the first thing he wanted to clear out of his memory, along with the lashes that came with it, he would be quite thankful if he could ever forget the night of the revolution, or the cold of the streets, the hunger before he started conning, the running through the street to escape a cop who would certainly had no mercy of the thief kid, the people he had conned...

"Well then you must plan on making Paris your true home." She kept insisting.

"What is it with you and homes?" He barked bitterly. Wrong thing to say, hmm?

Anya stood up with her arms furiously crossed, he lifted his legs and positioned them on Anya's seat, blocking her exit, just to bother her. She climbed clumsily on the seat, walked around Dimitri's legs, and kicked him softly but repeatedly in revenge.

"Well, for one thing it's something that every normal person wants, and for another thing, it's a thing where you..." he interrupted her.

"What?" He said cheekily, smirking at her.

"Y... you know ... oh, just forget it!" She was exasperated.

"Fine."

"Ahrrg!" She would kill him.

Just then, Vladimir entered the compartment and Anya looked at him relieved, while Dimitri gave him his back, solemnly looking at the window.

"Thank goodness it's you. Just please remove him from my sight." She pointed to him angrily.

"What have you done to her?" He said, sounding very much like a father scolding his children.

"Me? It's her!" He exclaimed, sounding very much like the troublemaker son said father was scolding.

"Ha! Just trying to have a simple conversation." She spun towards the door. Pooka barked and the door was closed as if voicing her exasperation.

"Oh no ... an unspoken atttaction!" Vladimir teased him. What was he thinking? Probably that was the reason why Anya wanted him far from her was that he had approached her a little too much or something.

"Attraction? To that skinny little brat... Have you lost your mind?" Hmmm, it does sound nice. Wait, no! Git, focus. Think with your head not with your penis, nothing good comes from that and you know it.

"I was only asking a simple question." Vladimir hadn't ended the sentence when he heard the slamming of the door.

True, he liked skinny girls, and yes he had always had a thing for red haired girls. And Anya was skinny and red haired, and had very pink soft-looking lips that contrasted the most enticing way with the blueness of her big blue eyes... But still he was not even attracted to her, because once the con ended, she would live in a pink perfect world in which he and his attractions had no place. "Attraction? Ridiculous!"

 _It was late that night. Rasputin's Minions were spiraling towards the train and the trees surrounding it. As they rocketed beneath the train, they crawled all over the engine and entered it, causing it to glow red, speed up and rattle as if it might fall apart. Nothing good would come from that, would it?_

 _One never knows though, a catastrophe can very well end in something better, hmm?__

Vladimir, was in the passageway of train, with the papers in one hand, when he walked past a couple discussing their traveling papers. Carefully, he stopped to look at the couple's papers, alarm shoot through his brain when he saw that they were printed in red. Agonizingly, Vlad looked at the papers he had forged that very afternoon.

"Last month, the traveling papers were blue, but now they're red." Said the man, confirming what he most feared.

"Papers! Papers, papers." Called the guard.

Flustered, and quite a bit upset, he abruptly turned and made his way back towards their train compartment.

"Oh. Pardon, oh."

"Tickets!" The guard kept calling.

"How rude" a woman said.

He reached the compartment, opened the door to it and entered, bringing with him a panicky air.

"It's what I hate about his government -- everything's in red." He said with a powerless voice.

"Red?" Dimitri repeated with hidden horror.

Vladimir showed him the forged papers, as if it was necessary to prove him that they were not the indicated colour.

"I propose we move to the baggage car– quickly, before the guards come!"

"I propose we get off this train." He said while they grabbed their luggages.

The window above a sleeping Anya suddenly suddenly started to glow green with passing minions. As an animal, Pooka was the only one to sense that something other than the papers was not right, he became alert, and ready to protect his mistress he barked at the glowing green thingies.

Of course, as he was busy with the suitcases, Dimitri did not notice them and proceeded to wake the sleeping beauty up.

"Hey!" On reflex she slugged him, quite hard for an asleep skinny little thing like her. So hard, in fact, that he fell backwards into the opposite seat while holding his throbbing nose.

"Ugh!"

"Ow!" _Hurts!_

"Sorry, I thought you were someone..." she started to apologize half asleep, until she saw him. "Oh! It's you. Well, that's okay then." Dimitri ignored her displeasing remark, picked up some luggage, turned to her and grabbed her hand, pulling her from the bench seat towards the compartment door.

"C'mon, we gotta go!" He said, trying hard, not to notice, how warm her hand was.

"Where are we going?" She asked gruffly. Vladimir was already heading down the corridor when they exited the compartment, Pooka ran behind him barking frantically, he even ran pass him.

"I think you broke my nose!" He resented while hurrying her, but she took her time on putting her coat on, exasperated herself and exasperating him on the way.

"Men are such babies." She mocked him, while following him down the corridor. When they got to the end they saw an opened door and they entered, way ahead of them it was Vladimir,

"Ah, yes, yes, this will do nicely." Dimitri whispered, Anya closed the door at her back.

"She'll freeze in here." Vladimir said thoughtfully.

 _I bath with cold water in winter just like you, if you and I can stand that, then I can stand every degree of coldness, thank you very much! Anya thought._

"She can thaw in Paris." On the other side, Dimitri was a little bit less thoughtful.

"The baggage car...?" She asked, managing to look sarcastic while looking at all suitcases, and baggage in general stuffed in there. "There wouldn't be anything wrong with our papers would there, Maestro?" Now, that was sarcasm.

"Of course not your grace, it's just that I ... I hate to see you forced to mingle with all those commoners." Her face told him that he really had to work on his excuses.

But he didn't have the time to dwell much on such thoughts, because suddenly a deafening sound ripped the air and they were all thrown against the floor, the baggage landed unceremoniously on them. Puzzled looks spread all across the room.

"What was that?" An explosion surely, but, was it an accident, where they under attack? It wouldn't be so hard to believe that the government had discovered they were trying to reunite the princess with her grandmother. Maybe some insane bloke out there decided to throw fireworks to the train, but that was not very probable, where would someone get the ingredients to make fireworks? He was a conman he knew about smuggling and fireworks were in the hard to get list in this part of USSR.

He had landed on Anya, she had the most beautiful outraged face he had ever seen on her while struggling under his weight. Wait why was she struggling under his weight? He didn't know. She was so small and he was paralyzed, he couldn't move, couldn't breath. Why couldn't he move? Were her eyes always that stubborn shade of blue? She tilted her head to the side trying to push her arm from under some luggage and the spell was broken, he regained clearness of thought. It had lasted mere seconds, but it had been enough seconds.

"I don't know, but there goes the dining car." Said Vladimir, who had not tried to find some firm land to stand in in his mind and was currently looking out of the window

"Get off of me!"she grunted exasperated.

"I, I'm trying." He was struggling to stand, but, no, she could not be a little bit pacient with him, now, could she?

"Ouch!" In a moment like that one, he wondered if she just liked to kick him to take out her frustration or if she was really having that much trouble with the suitcases.

Whatever the answer they were now free, and so they stood.

"Dimitri." Vladimir called him.

"What?!" He answered, still holding his aching shin and trying to convince himself that the coldness he was feeling was the general coldness of the baggage compartment, and not the missing of a human warm body against his.

"I think someone has flambeed our engine." Dimitri and Anya moved forward to see the engine, which was blowing a worrying amount of smoke and fire.

Scared out of his wits, Dimitri knew that if there was someone who would check what the bloody hell was happening in the coal car, it was him. Vlad was in no shape to do it and Anya... if she got disfigured the con would be imposible. Yes, think of the con, there's no other reason, why would another reason exist? Ten million rubles. Ten million rubles. Nothing more.

"Something's not right here, I'll check it out." He announced them, he was going to do it. "Wait." He told them before jumping into the coal car, the force of the speed destabilized him, he needed to enter the car or he would fall and everything would end then and there.

 _God let me live, please don't let me die_. And with that desperate prayer and a grunt he disappeared into the coal car.

Inside, Dimitri promised himself he would never ever complain about cold in his life. The heat was so intense he wasn't even sure if everything was red or if it was his imagination. Shielding his face from the fire like heat, he approached the cockpit.

"Anybody here? ... Hmm, aah!" Everything was red, he was not imagining it, _I'm going to die burned, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, oh dear god I'm going to die!_ The fucking pressure gauges, exploded shoving little pieces of crystal into him. He was scared to death, so very scared.

He tried to grab a lever and do something whatever to reverse the situation. But the thing was burning with the heat of the place and instead he ended up with a burn in his hand. _Double bloody fucking shit that hurts!_ More fire exploded upward and it was too much for him, adrenaline, fear, alarm and his instinct of survival kicked him out of the car and he finally scrambled back towards baggage car, his hand, aching sorely would remain like a distant pain until that hell of a situation was solved.

"We're going way too fast." Anya panicked the same second Dimitri returned to them, dirty, singed and restless.

"Nobody's driving this train We're gonna have to jump!" He opened the door and they all looked down, where a sheer cliff dropped into a chasm.

"Did you say jump?" She said looking slyly at what awaited them were they to jump. "After you."

"Fine, Then we'll uncouple the car." Whatever ice would have formed on the couplings of the cars had melted under the heat that the engine transpired. But evil has it ways to freeze even the most heated heart and something as simple as the coupling of a train was no challenge.

And so, when Dimitri jumped onto the coupling to work on the connection he found that the impossible had taken place, despite the fire of the car just in front of it, there it lied, cold and practically unbreakable ice.

"Come on, I need a wrench, an ax, anything!" He shouted alarmed by how the ice seemed to be very solid. Vlad and Anya looked at him and started a desperate search through the baggage compartment for something, anything! that would help him break the ice.

Vladimir was struggling to open a toolbox and when he finally opened it, he grabbed the bigger thing he found. It turned out to be a hammer.

"Here." He said.

Fate decided to intervene once more, of course his messenger would again be Pooka, who obediently yapped at a box, labeled: Danger, Explosives, and barked at Anya until she looked down and saw what he wanted her to see, instantly she smiled with satisfaction. _And my dog wouldn't come, huh? Well Mr, seems like the 'mutt' saved our arses!_

"Come on, there's gotta be something in there better than this." Dimitri complained, he was pounding on the coupling with all his strength, but it was to no use, the ice was too strong and the head of the hammer snapped off! That... thingy... had the insolence of breaking! Anya chose that same exact second to stick out her her of the car and handed him a lit stick of dynamite.

"That'll work." He said startled, just before shoving it into the coupling. Then he rushed back into the car baggage.

"Go, go, go!" He shouted racing them to the other end of the car and landing in a pile, behind a steamer trunk.

"What do they teach you in those orphanages?" He said awed after hearing the **BOOM!** with which the front of the car was blown away.

The engine car kept going fastly and the baggage car was not far behind, the brakes were broken.

"Don't worry. We've got plenty of track, we'll just coast to a stop." Have you ever heard that old Spanish saying 'No cuentes las monedas antes de tenerlas?' 'Do not count your coins before you've got them'? Well they counted their coins way too early, for as soon as the phrase had ended, the bridge ahead of them exploded in a flash of green fire.

"You were saying?" The trio stared at the crumbling bridge, dumbstruck. And, as nothing was more useful to speed up than feeling your life at risk, the baggage car picked up speed while heading downhill towards the collapsed bridge.

Dimitri, now used to jump into action and try to save the day, looked for a chain, there had to be one in there, relieved when he saw one, he grabbed it and gave it to Vladimir.

"I got an idea Vlad, give me a hand with this." Of course, it was just necessary for him to be needed to pick that moment to loose balance due to the speed and fell into a box.

Dimitri did not noticed it and edged his way out of the car, the ground whizzed beneath him as he lowered himself underneath the carriage.

"Hand me the chain!" He said reaching up but instead of his friend hanging out over him with the chain, there was Anya holding the chain for him.

"Not you!" He said, it wasn't that he was so capricious that the only person in the world from he would accept the chain was Vladimir, specially not in such a situation. But Anya was a woman, and there was no way her strength could compare with Vlad's, if she threw the chain to him there was the chance that it would fall and there would be no chain and everything would be lost.

"Vlad's busy at the moment." She said simply and handed him the chain, leaving him mentally stunned and looking at her with a new degree of respect. After wasting precious seconds being mentally stunned he hooked the chain onto the undercarriage.

He had done it, but things couldn't work that well, it was a Universe's rule. Nothing went completely well, specially in dangerous situations. What went wrong in this case, was the piece of twisted steel that came flying back at him. "No! No! Yaaaaa!"

Too much fear for one night, he decided while with Anya's help he yanked himself up just as the shrapnel whipped by, shattering a tree in its way. He gulped at the sight.

They landed in something similar to an embrace, and their breath got caught. Blue crashed against brown. Illusion and idealism against cunning and cynicism, something deep inside their souls, something old, very old. A feeling so distant that the moment had to freeze, because the feeling wanted to shorten the distance to the surface, wanted to surge from the blue and the brown, but the time was not enough.

Dimitri snapped out (forced himself out) of his transe, and then looked at the shattered tree receding in the distance.

"And to think, that could have been you." She broke the silence.

"If we live through this, remind me to thank you." He said smiling arrogantly. There was something off on his arrogance, but no one would be able to pick up what it was.

Their car was approaching the gorge when Dimitri said:

"Here goes nothing. Brace yourselves." And with that, he and Anya threw the other end of the chain out the back, which thankfully also had a hook on it. The hook bounced several times, bited into a railroad tie and whipped it out. It instantly pulled that tie, and several more. Someone's going to pay for this's, and I'm grateful it's not me.

PLINK PLINK PLINK, until one holds.

The car separated from the wheel base, turned sideways on the track, plowing through the snow and slowed down.

"Well, this is our stop." Anya said looking at them, trying to give some humor to the end of the situation before everyone jumped and the engine plunged over the broken bridge, igniting a fire strong enough to warm them, even though they were several meters above it.

"I hate trains. Remind me never to get on the train again." Dimitri said starting the walk.

"Are we going to walk to Paris?"

"We'll take a boat in Weimar Republic."


	7. On the way to Weimar Republic

"Noooooooo!!" The master screamed.

"Wow, hey take it easy there. You know, sir, really you should watch your blood pressure. My nephew Izzie just keeled over one day, mid- mango. Stress. it's a killer sir. And he's a fruit bat, no meat, no blood even." He tried to soothe him, but the master just stared blankly at him.

"How could they let her escape?!"

"Ha wow ... Ah, you're right. It's very upsetting sir." He said distractedly picking up the reliquary. "Eh, I guess this Reliquary thing's broken." After saying that, he proceded to toss the Reliquary over his shoulder, the object flew through the air to his master's terror.

"You idiot!" Desperate the master skidded across the floor and ended up flinging his own hand ahead, fortunately his hand landed just under the Reliquary and broke its fall in time.

After securing his beloved reliquary, the master turned on him, his eyes forming the very shade of fury. Bartok truly feared feared for his life.

"Alright now sir, take it easy there. Just remember what I said to you about stress–" he backed away, but the master had other plans, he shoved his Reliquary against his nose before speaking to him very slowly, with the voice of a man who is trying very hard not to kill someone.

"I sold my soul for this. My life, my very existence depends on it, and you almost destroyed it!" The master lose his resolve of talking to him as if he were a child he did not want to kill and barked. Afraid, he tried to squirm away.

"I get it! I get it! 'you break it, you bought it." He squeezed.

"See that you remember, you miserable rodent."

"Oh, sure, blame the bat. What the heck we're easy targets always hanging ... ar..." He sulked.

"What are you muttering about?" _Caught! Think of something, quickly!_

"Anastasia, sir. Just wishing I could do the job for you Sir, I'd give her a Ha then a hi ya and then a woowah and I'd kick her, sir." Just to be convincing he mimed some karate chops with his wings.

"Oh, I have something else in mind ... something more enticing, something really cruel..." he said with that crooked smile that announced that nothing good would come along.

That night they camped in a clear.

It came out as a surprise for Anya, but both Dimitri and Vladimir had sleeping bags. They did not count with a tent, as it would not fit in neither of their suitcases but at least they had something to sleep on. Well, they did. She had gotten out of the orphanage with what she was wearing, which did not include a sleeping bag or anything of the like.

"So, how are we going to organize this?" Vlad started.

"Organize what?" She asked, confused as to what would they have to organize, she was tired, and frankly just wanted to pass out if that meant to have some sleep.

"We have two sleeping bags, we are three persons, and a princess can't present herself with cold-broken lips." Dimitri said.

"Actually I have no problem, I have slept out in he cold before, just with my coat I'll be fine." She said.

"Where exactly have you slept in the cold?" Vlad intervened.

"In St. Petersburg."

"It's not the same. Out here it's way colder, and out there you have at least the buildings to stop some of the wind."

"Yeah, but..." Only Pooka was listening to her.

"We could share one and give the other to her." Vlad suggested.

"I refuse." Dimitri said.

"Why would you refuse?"

"You know what happened last time."

"It was an accident!"

"But I won't have another broken rib, so that's out of question."

"Alright, alright."

"I could make a nest with my coat, truly I have no problem." Anya said again, but the look they gave her was even worse than a roll of eyes, they made it possible to say that the mere idea of sleeping in the winter-cold snowy forest with just her coat to protect her was the single stupidest thing they had ever heard, just with a look. _That, is what I call economizing in words._

"That's out of question too. Maybe I could use her coat and some of my clothes to make another sleeping bag." Anya wanted to say that she could do that herself, but Vladimir said something more convino so she shut her mouth.

"It would be useless. Snow would melt under you and you would wake up soaked wet and ill."

"I have spent nights like this in the city, guys you don't need to worry!" Well it had been just two times, when she was found unconscious ten years ago, and her first night in St. Petersburg but they didn't need to know it to look at her that way again.

"She's not going to like the other option." Vladimir stated.

"Well, it's that or nothing, cuz I'm not going to pay for a doctor if she wakes up with pneumonia."

"What's the other option?" She asked, even though she could imagine what they would say she wanted some confirmation, and they could always surprise her with something crazier like sleeping above of one of the trees so that she wouldn't have to deal with the snow. But of course, the answer was just what she had expected.

"We can share Vlad's bag, which is the bigger one and he can have mine."

"Okay."

"Okay?" They both looked at her, eyes wide, amazed.

"Yeah, you are not gonna allow me to sleep on my coat, and I have shared bed and floor with boys at the orphanage, I think I can survive sharing a sleeping bag with you. And right now, I'm too tired to fight about it, tomorrow I'll think of something." They turned to one another conspicuously as if she wouldn't notice them if they whispered to themselves. They were in a forest, it was dark and the cold silenced everything, how could she not hear them?

"That was pretty easy, don't you think?"

"Yeah. A little too much, do you think that she...?"

"Guys I can hear you perfectly well from here." They turned, looked at her and blushed crimson red.

The bags were kind of homemade. They were the classical euklisia rugs, but had some more leather roughly sewn on the outer part and the inside wool had a fur reinforcement.

The three of them removed their boots, and proceeded to get into their respective sleeping bags.

Anya was the first to enter their bag and Dimitri did not wait too much to get himself into it.

There wasn't much space, in fact there was no space between them. They were both stiff, arms rigidly tucked to their sides and very much awake. It was cold and they were too tired to care about how near they were from each other. And deep down, they were both gratified to have something warm to stick to.

"Did you burn something?" She said after a while of closing her eyes and being unable to conquer sleep.

"Hmm?" He did listen her question, but he was a bit too tired and words didn't came as easily.

"I asked if you had burnt something, the coal car was in flames and you kinda smell like I singed."

"My hand."he said a bit more awake.

"Is it okay?"

"It will be, eventually."

"How did you burned it?"

"Stupidly enough."

"That's not an answer."

"It is."

"It is not a complete one."

"I grabbed something, a metal something its name I cannot remember now, you know when you can picture something in your head but you can't remember its name? Well like that. It's a metallic... tube? Whatever, I just thought I could do something to try and preserve the situation, I was scared and nervous and forgot that everything was at like a hundred degrees."

"Ouch." She wasn't mocking him, and he felt himself smile at that.

"Yeah."

"Does it hurts?" Like hell, my hand's on fire and I would gladly cry if you and Vlad weren't here.

"Yeah, a bit." He said instead.

"Poor you. I wish I knew a way to make it better."

"Don't worry, I'll keep putting my hand on the snow the whole night and I'll be alright."

"Your hand's touching the snow?"

"Didn't you notice?" He chuckled.

"I didn't!" She chuckled back. "Have you done this before?"

"What?" He asked, the question bringing other kind of thoughts to his mind.

"Sleeping in the forest." She clarified. Oh, of course.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"It's complicated, but summarizing, when you are a conman, sometimes you need to disappear."

"Oh, I understand." She said. "So, is Dimitri your real name or...?"

"Yeah, my name's Dimitri. But I have changed it lots of times, I have been Ruslan, Zakhar, Iosif, Emmanuil, and Erik, but last year when I came back to St. Petersburg after, well, I don't think it will hurt you to know, but I smuggled some jewels that came from Germany to some soviet i-dunno-what, I wasn't allowed to know what he did but I think he had some importance, the thing is I got caught, after receiving my payment and I had to disappear for some time if I didn't want to end up in a Gulag, so when I came back after a couple of months I decided to use my real name since, except Vlad, nobody in the business knew it."

"What name were you using then?"

"Iosif. It was useful, soviets tend to like you better with that sort of name."

"And your clients?"

"Uh, don't think they liked it, but it may have made them laugh, in some bitter kind of ironical way."

"I guess. Don't think Iosif suits you though."

"Yeah, don't think so too, but sometimes it's better to be practical."

"What was your favorite name?"

"I'm between Zakhar and Erik, I quite liked Erik."

"Oh, but Ruslan is such a good name!"

"Noticed how you left Emmanuil out."

"Don't like that name, the son of comrade Phlegmenkof, the woman who owned the orphanage in which I grew up was called like that. He was suuch a git, man, he messed with my food. You don't mess with a hungry kid's food."

"Yeah, I remember passing hunger after the revolution. I used to work in the kitchens at the old palace. I was never hungry there, you know? I always got a taste when something was being cooked. Good old times."

"Did you know me?"

"Kind off, servant kids weren't supposed to mingle with royal ones." He said, his voice gone. 'Princesses don't marry kitchen boys.'

"Oh."

"You were cute. Everyone liked you, but everyone liked the royal kids in general, specially the maids, since you all made your beds and rooms, it was a touching gesture for them."

"Really? I thought Princesses weren't supposed to do that kind of thing."

"But you were a better kind of princesses. You bathed with cold water as everyone, your sisters used to be nurses in the Red Cross for the soldiers in the Great War, I remember you once went to play cards with some soldiers that were waiting to come back to the front, I was fooling around the palace, you see when I came back from gathering some spices from the kitchen garden I didn't saw the cook, so I took my opportunity, left the things on the kitchen board and escaped the kitchens. No one was really looking, and I was pacing through the servants corridor when I heard you talking to one of your sisters. You were indignant with one soldier that had let you win."

"Sounds like me." She giggled.

And, after that, silence tied their tongues, no word could be so bold as to brake through it. But, nevertheless the situation was not uncomfortable. It was the silence of two tired souls who had made peace without noticing it and were now able to rest.

Slowly but surely Morpheus claimed them, firstly Dimitri closed his eyes, placed his head on her shoulder, exhaled an exhausted breath and soon he was asleep. Anya, not wanting to remain alone in the plane of the awake followed after him.

The next morning, Dimitri awoke with one hand buried in snow and the other around Anya's waist. He almost couldn't feel his hand and it wasn't without fear that he deeped his hand into the warmth of the sleeping bag and waited, he couldn't know how much time passed, with his heart pounding soundly in his chest until he recovered the motion in his hand. It started to sting, of course, but he wasn't about to risk his hand to gangrene again.

The next affair to settle was almost solved after that nervous brake down. But it was still there. The _affair_ below his waist, was still there, still pleasantly near to poor innocent asleep Anya. It wouldn't do for her to wake up and notice that.

Embarrassed, he decided he would have to get out of the bag and walk until it was settled.

Maybe he could try to hunt something.

It wasn't an easy decision to follow, though. It was so warm inside the bag, and so cold out of it, he spend quite some time before he found the nerve to get out.

He wished he didn't have to get up, he wished he could throw both his arms around the warm body pressed against him, he wished he could stay like that the rest of his life. But he couldn't, he had to hunt something so they could avoid starving.

It was so cold. So very cold!

Two days later, they found a little village, where they discovered they were in Poland, free of soviet domain. There they used the 'money' they had brought to buy some food, wash their clothes and spend the night in a family's house.

"What don't you have in that suitcases?" Anya asked, watching all the packed things things they had brought from St. Petersburg to Poland: the sleeping bags, the knifes, the two pistols she wished she hadn't seen, four different wigs, the fake marks, francs and słoties, and the bigger suitcase was full of suits.

"A train."

"A tent."

"A horse."

"A–"

"Got it, got it."

The next morning, they started traveling again, for doing so, they rented three horses and parted to Germany.

The horses were not trained to run fast, and they were four hundred miles away from the port from which they would part to Paris. This horses, couldn't run more than thirty-something miles per day and doing stops every now and then.

Sometimes nights found them in the route, where they would have to camp, some others found them in a village or town. It took them a week to be near the border with Germany, there, they sold the rented horses for a bit more money than they were worth, two went to an eloped couple and the other to a middle aged woman with brown silvering hair and a black eye.

After selling them, they spent the night in another kind-hearted family, and parted walking the following morning.


	8. Learn to do it

**Well hello! Thank you for reading,** **enjoy this chapter, I baked it with love XD**

Dear reader, have you ever been in the countryside in spring? Have you ever felt the heaving of the air that comes with the arrival of the spring? Because I know that there, in the cities it is impossible to feel it. In the city you will know it because ladies change their hats and mostly because you will see it in the calendar. But it is different in the country, the strength it has there! It comes all of a sudden; spring climbs that hillsides chanting of freedom, full of mint and resin, booming through the mountains. It's as if it echoed from the very depths of the earth and everything bloomed back to life in an instant.

You will be wondering why am I telling you this. Why do you care at all about spring and it's strength? The answer is quite simple, dear reader, as spring has reached this story it is essential to make its importance very clear.

Spring is rebirth time. Things that have slept as if dead during winter must come back to life. In the permanent winter of oblivion and sorrow, love has slumbered for long years, but even the coldest of winters must end its barren, and spring face no viers to canopy the little warmth that lasts still.

Don't you see dear reader of mine? Spring is there, everywhere, ready to heal the wounds of winter. Swirling with winds of pollen and joggling hearts. You can see it in the croci peeking their violet and yellow heads through patches of melting snow, in the sun bathing the path, and in the life that took power over every single piece of land.

"Are we walking to Germany?" Anya asked looking at the sky lost in a fantasized waltz.

"No, your grace. We're taking a bus." Dimitri answered ironically.

"A bus! That's nice." She answered in the same manner.

"Sophie, my dear, Vlady's on his way!" Vladimir shouted, deep inside spring's charm, feverish with excitement over meeting his old flame in Paris. They still had three more days of journey, and that was just until they reached the port, for they would still have many more once they reached it, but it was spring and spring works like that, shortening distances and warming them mood of whom lets her work.

"Who's Sophie?"

"Who is Sophie?" He asked, as if not believing the question, so lost in his own youthful memories, almost floating in his fantasy, that he could very well be under Puck's charm, maybe the sprite was influencing him through that crown of flowers that the kids of the last home in which they slept had gifted him with. "She's a tender little morsel."

"Vlad." Dimitri tried to stop his embarrassing perorate but it was to no use, when Vlad started talking about his Sophie, nothing could stop him.

"The cup of hot chocolate after a long walk in the snow."

"Vlad, Xnay on the offesay." Dimitri tried to get him to stop with his delusion, but, reaffirming his theory that the good never got what they deserve, his friend started dancing with his beloved in his fantasy, and as he was the nearest person he took him as his dancing companion.

"She's a decadent pastry filled with whipped cream and laughter!" He exclaimed while bending him down in Anya's direction.

"Is this a person or a cream puff?" She asked him, amused by the comparisons Vlad was making.

"She is the Empress's ravishing first cousin." Dimitri couldn't stop him from humming his answer.

"But I thought we were going to see the Empress herself. Why are we going to see her cousin? Dimitri!!" Of course, he was the first to blame. Even though she was annoyingly accurate at turning to him in search of a culprit, he was still bothered by it.

"Well, nobody gets near the Dowager Empress without convincing Sophie first." He said fastly, with his most convincing voice while Vlad hummed and gathered flowers in the background. The git would pay... when he was able to take him out of his love-sick trance.

"Oh no, not me, no. Nobody ever told me I had to prove I was the Grand Duchess." She said suddenly terrorized.

"Look, I–" _know we didn't tell you the whole of it but please listen..._ Dimitri unsuccessfully tried to say, for he hadn't even reached the third word that she had interrupted him.

"Show up. Yes. Look nice. Fine. But lie?" Dimitri watched her fiddling nervously with her necklace and knew that that was a bad sign. She was panicking. She wasn't used to lying and she didn't really have faith in her being a princess, the only thing she had really wanted was to travel to Paris, she could act as if she believed she was a princess to them, but she knew that the second the Empress looked at her she would be told she wasn't. To pass through a test meant she she would have to lie. That was something else.

"You don't know if it's a lie. What if it's true? OK, so there's one more stop on the road to finding out who you are. I just thought this was something you had to see through to the end no matter what." Maybe he wasn't the man to convince her. She was practically inmune to his methods. He couldn't seduce her into doing it, she was too decent for that, probably she would runaway and die of hunger when she stopped running and found herself lost. He couldn't tempt her with money, that would detriment his profit and would also be useless with her, she was too honest for that. And she didn't have the slightest faith in her being a princess so the find-your-family wasn't an option. How could he get her to learn the things needed to pass Sophie's test?

"But look at me, Dimitri! I am not exactly Grand Duchess material here, aham!" He looked at her and yeah, she was not wearing fancy clothes and she was traveling alone with two men which wasn't exactly proper, and her hair was not braided nor neatly combed as the ladies used it, but still... she had the bluest pair of eyes he had ever seen, and he had seen his fair share of blue eyes, she had porcelain-like skin and pink perfect lips, she was slender and curvy, she was just not dressed for it! She could very well be a Grand Duchess if she just had the clothes for it.

Of course she didn't want to hear that, so she stomped off to the bridge ahead of them, all the way muttering to herself about idiotic conmen.

He knew he was not the man for it, so he looked at his friend, nodded off in Anya's direction and Vlad parted to do the job.

She had stopped in the bridge, it was made of wood and had an old air, as if reminding them of older times, of someone that had stood where they stood and had looked at the water there, just where Vlad directed her attention.

"Tell me, child, what do you see?" He asked her.

She was wearing a white ragged dress, part of her red her was pulled up in a messy ponytail, her reflection smudged in the water. She saw no princess there. She saw a lost girl, she saw Anya the orphan. Skinny little Anya with no past and betting too much on future that was not there.

"I see a skinny little nobody, with no past and no future." She saw his brown well cared shirt and she felt envious, everything she had was boyish or ragged. But she couldn't dwell much on her envy, not because of the goodness of her heart, but because Vladimir started talking with his mild fatherly voice.

"I see an engaging and fiery young woman ... who on a number of occasions has shown a regal command equal to any royal in the world. And I have known my share of royalty." He said and then, with a confidential voice he told her his biggest secret. "You see my dear, I was a member of the imperial Court." Living in the USSR, you couldn't be even close to royalty, and he couldn't remember the last time he had revealed his true identity. It must have been years ago, with another lost little child.

She looked at him, surprised, moved by the confidence he seemed to deem her fit of. She would have said something, she was quite close to agreeing when Dlmitri's face showed up reflected in the pond next to theirs, which wouldn't have mattered had he not said what he said.

"So, are you ready to become the Grand Duchess Anastasia?" It wasn't that she was still annoyed at Dimitri for not being honest what angered her. What truly angered her and made Vlad give him The Look, was his unfortunate choice of words 'ready to become' he said, as if acknowledging that he didn't believe in her royal origins. As if admitting they were not only conning her but the Empress too.

"What?!" He said. Maybe Puck was toying with him too. He wouldn't have committed such a mistake had he been in his usual self.

"There's nothing left for you back there my dear. Everything is in Paris." Vlad told her and that did the trick. Anya remembered what awaited her back in the USSR: hunger, a work she no longer had, and the orphanage and its inhabitants no longer an option.

"Gentlemen, start your teaching." She said after a while, she had taken her decision.

"I remember it well." He said and started the walk. "You were born in a palace by the sea."

"A palace by the sea, could it be?" She couldn't imagine herself being born in a palace, it just didn't make sense for her, she who slept in damp cold floors, she who was raised in comrade Phlegmenkof's orphanage, she who was traveling alone with two conmen.

"Yes, that's right." Vladimir continued. And he started telling her details from when she was a newborn baby, how her parents bathed her with cold water to make her strong, how she was always giggling and how easy it was for everyone to play with her baby self.

Sun was hiding in the horizon when a village came into view. It was time to use that fake marks to wash their clothes and rent horses. Not half an hour later they had all reached the place.

The washer was their host and had a little but useful room in which they slept, they had convinced the woman that Anya and Dimitri were married and Vladimir was Dimitri's father and they were traveling to the east to present her to the family.

Next morning they woke up with washed up clothes and a strong breakfast, they paid Frau Dïller and asked her where could they rent some horses.

It was in the road when conversation turned the teaching mode on.

"You know? You used to ride horseback when you were three." Vlad said

"Horseback riding me?" She repeated startled, she had been surprised about how easy it was for her to ride, but she had never expected to have started at such an age. It seemed even more surreal than her being a princess.

"Your horse was white if I'm not mistaken." Dimitri commented, and suddenly Anya could picture something in her head. Little hands hugged to a white horse's neck. Neighs, laughter. Cold and warmth mixed up in thrill. She said nothing about it. The conversation had turned to something else.

"You used to make faces all the time. Once you ran past some servants trying to imitate a wolf with your face and running in all fours."

"Have always liked wolves, think of it." She said.

"Guess that's why you liked terrorizing people." Dimitri said, digging to find some much loved memories.

"I do not like to terrorize people!"

"Tell that to the Cook." Dimitri said.

"What cook?"

"The palace Cook, duh." Dimitri said.

"You had picked it bad with the Cook, true." Vladimir said smiling to himself.

"You threw him in the brook!" Dimitri added gleefully.

He had worked for him, and remembered that particular occasion dearly.

The Cook hadn't been a bad man, but he hadn't been a good one either. He had been raised toughly and was taught that hitting was the only way to straighten a troublemaker, like he himself had been. He knew his place in the world and believed his duty to teach Dimitri his 'Princesses don't marry kitchen boys' had been his work of art on that regard. He was always a little grumpy, but was kind when he felt like it. Like that time when Dimitri was eight and fell ill, he didn't make him work all the same, he made him a good breakfast and let him rest the whole day, 'But don't dare tell the kitchen staff, little brat, or they'll be all ill tomorrow.' His voice had been rough as always, but he could swear upon his life that he heard an affectionate pitch there.

So yeah, as a kid he hadn't liked him very much. But he got to appreciate him after noticing his little details of kindness.

That time, when Anastasia played her prank, he had been as curious as the whole kitchen when the butler called the Cook. He had followed them through the kitchen's garden where princess Olga told him something he hadn't been able to hear, probably a fake complaint (no one complained about the cook, the man may had never learned to properly write his own name but if there was something he knew it was how to cook).

The princess dismissed him after a minute or two and he hadn't walked three steps that the palace hounds started hunting him down, running behind them there was a little redheaded girl with messy hair, shaking a blue handkerchief in her left hand while cracking with laughter.

The Cook, big as he was, wasn't very fast, and soon his panicked head thought that the brook was his salvation. With no time to rethink it, he jumped into it and only then the little girl whistled at the dogs to retreat. Giggling all the while back the little devil of a princess rushed back into the palace and winked at him when she ran past his hiding place.

"Was I wild?" Anya asked, pulling him out of his childhood.

"Someone should have written a book cataloging your mischiefs!" Dimitri said with laugher in his voice, Anastasia had been something!

"But, you behaved when your father gave you The Look!" Vladimir said.

"What's The Look?" Anya asked as if she hadn't ever called a scolding gaze The Look.

"You know, that look fathers and some older people have when they scold you." Dimitri said, signaled his friend and tried to imitate his Look.

"Oh, that." She said and frowned and twisted her mouth.

"Just like that! Who's Look are you imitating?" Dimitri exclaimed.

"Comrade Phlegmenkof! She always had the look on." She giggled.

"Sounds like the perfect person to deal with little children."

"Who is comrade Phlegmenkof?" Vladimir asked.

"The director of her orphanage." Dimitri said. Vlad looked at him for a moment, as if trying to ask him with his eyes how could he know that.

"Yeah, she was the best, always grunting and looking scary, and pointing you with the hairy wart in her chin. Ah, good old comrade Phlegmenkof." She was laughing before finishing the sentence, Dimitri didn't wait too much to laugh himself, and as Vlad and Pooka wouldn't be out of the laughing party, they started laughing and barking respectively.

"She sounds as the sweetest person to ever come to life." Dimitri said.

"Of course." Anya responded giggling.

"Well, kids, we still have to reteach her her past." Vlad reminded them.

"Imagine how it was! Your long-forgotten past." Dimitri exclaimed.

"We've so much to teach you and the time is running so fast! Vlad lamented.

"Don't worry, I learn fast." She tried to soothe him.

The next two days until they reached Straslund were full of. "Shoulders back and stand up tall!" "Don't walk, float!" And if she was honest, she didn't feel like floating she felt rather foolish, as if doing something very silly but they still insisted on it.

Courtseying was another thing they were driving her crazy about, "It's not gracious enough!" "That's too much submissiveness." "Shoulders back, Anya! We are past this!"

A curtsey was a formal greeting in which a woman bent her knees with one foot after the other, after doing that the man whom she was greeting would kiss her hand. And who else would practice courtseying with her but Dimitri? She was kind of embarrassed the first curtsey, but on the tenth time, the only embarrassing thing was to still have to practice how to do a curtsey. Well almost the only, Dimitri's kisses on her hand had gradually started to be more source of embarrassment than not being able to do a proper curtsey. His lips tingled, and he let them remain in her skin for longer than necessary, his eyes boring playfully into hers. He totally was the reason of her failure.

"C'mon Anya, you can do it." Dimitri said.

"I know, I know, the only thing I don't know is what the hell I'm doing wrong! How can I don't even know what's wrong?"

"You do it right, it's just graceless. We are working on that." Vlad said.

"I'm not that graceless!"

"You are not, but we still have to dwell on it." Dimitri intervened.

"Just remember this, if I can learn to do it, then you can learn to do it too." Vlad added.

"Something in you must know it, try to take it easy, there's nothing to it!" Dimitri was trying to help, but well, when you are an orphan that has tried to remember something, whatever, from your past for ten years, the 'something in you knows it' sounded like a kick on the ribs.

"Let's try again, shall we? This time I'll do it with you, follow in my footsteps show by shoe."

After a while, it was time to pick up with the journey, they couldn't teach her to be a lady just when resting the horses and before going to bed whenever they reached a village, therefore the only solution was to shout instructions and tips about how to behave.

'Sit up straight!' Was one of Vlad's favorites, but Dimitri preferred to shout more random things like 'Never slurp the stroganoff!' The funny thing was that she didn't even like stroganoff, it had onions and she hated onions.

Somehow, they ended up talking about how Vlad burned his hand with the samovar when he was a little kid. He warned her to be careful with that thing, it was evil. As the samovar reminded them of a good hot tea, they started talking about food, which brought Dimitri back to his childhood, which irremediably ended up in him talking about the palace kitchens.

"I remember we once made too much caviar, it was the cook's daughter birthday so we used the left overs in the little party we made on the kitchen for her. There was a little bit of everything, man how we are that day! I was always good with sweet stuff and as little Dasha loved prianiks I made them for her."

"Congrats now I'm hungry." Anya said, Vlad nodded in agreement. "I wanna eat something sweeeet. You know? I always loved baked apples. I want baked apples!" Anya said playfully as if expecting him to make some appear out of nowhere.

"I'd rather go for some vetrushka. Man, that thing makes happy."

"You kids know nothing of desserts. You all want pastila, pastila makes everyone happy." Vlad said and they laughed.

"Seriously, kitchen boy, if I ever get you in a kitchen I'll make you make pastila, bake apples and if you have time you can make some vetrushka but you will have to share it with us." They all laughed. Dimitri was the first to stop laughing though.

It had been years since the last time he was called kitchen boy. He was a con man, not a kitchen boy. Not anymore. Kitchen boy was tied to so many things he no longer was. Kitchen boy was bonded to a phrase that he longed to forget. Not because he wanted to marry any princess (he wouldn't mind though that would be one hell of a fortune) but because 'Princesses don't marry kitchen boys.' had always been matched with a smack on the back of his head and bitterness. Bitterness that he could do nothing to stop him, bitterness that it was true, bitterness because to crash a kid's dream was the most painful thing one could do.

That night they camped at the side of the road, they made a fire and roasted the salted meat they had bought in the last village and slept in the same sleep arranges as always.

The last day of the journey through Germany, Vlad started teaching her about her family tree.

"You must memorize the names of the royalty. It is important for you to know about who you are related with." Vladimir said when they started. But she was absolutely bad at it.

"Try to remember them by curious things you know about them. Like there, Kropotkin shot Potemkin in the Botkin." Drimitri intervened, seeing as there was little to no prowess. Surprisingly enough it worked. Anya would forever connect the 1905 Russian revolution with Prince Kropotkin.

"Remember old uncle Vanya? Well, he loved vodka. Uncle Vanya-Vodka." Vlad was good at adapting to Dimitri's system.

"Got it Anya?" Dimitri said.

"No!"

"What don't you understand?"

"Who shot who?" Was Vanya involved?

"Krotopkin shot Potemkin in the Botkin. There. There's no connection between the anarchist and uncle Vanya, that's just the next person you are learning about. Alright?"

"I guess."

"Now, the Baron Pushkin." Vlad started again.

"He was...?" There, on the tip of her tongue there was and adjective, as if waiting to be said, as if it was something very obvious. _He was... sh–... sh-something!_

"Short!" Dimitri voiced. _That!_

"Count Anatoly." And suddenly a giant painting with a man on a horse came to her mind.

"Had a...–" she tried to say but Dimitri interrumped her.

"Wart!" He said, and all she could think of was _Wart? Maybe in his late years, but a wart has nothing to do with the painting, maybe I'm imagining things._

"Count Sergei..." Vlad started and again she saw something, something furry and deeply beloved. _A cat. Count Sergei had a cat! What colour was it?_

"Wore a feathered hat." Dimitri ended.

"I hear he's gotten very fat." Vlad said gossipily. _Fat... Fat. Yellow fat cat!_

"And I recall his yellow cat!" She said, proud of remembering it.

"I don't believe we told her that. But indeed he had a yellow cat." Vladimir whispered to Dimitri, with luck enough that the wind took his whisper away from Anaya's ears.

Little by little she started remembering more, it became easier to remember who was who and to have a distinctive feature for everyone.

"Anya, you're a dream come true!" They said gleefully, they had taught her everything that would be taught that evening and she had absorbed everything like a sponge. It was incredibly easy to teach her and they were very satisfied with the outcome of just three days of lessons.

Sun was beginning to hide in the sky when their road finally decided to end. They had reached their fate.

They were in Straslund, and tomorrow they would part. Finally!

 **Now, would it be too difficult to leave me some reviews? I dunno, just asking because there are eight chapters and still 0 reviews and it's getting on my nerves, you know? Please, please, please, pleaaaase leave me some reviews.**


	9. One, two, three

**Hi again! I know it took me a while, but as I said in my other fic, I'm a student, I've got to sit up for the three lasting IGCSE examinations and I can't barely breathe anything but business, chemistry and biology, so... I'm going slower than what I would like. But don't worry, I haven't abandoned this fic nor the other. Also, sorry for this being a short chapter.**

Vlad was buying the boarding tickets, Anya was asleep and not five minutes ago, Dimitri had been too.

He threw some water into his eyes and rubbed his face a bit.

"I'm up. Up. Up... Up." He said, trying to convince himself about his state of awakeness. Sleeve garter, trousers, shirt and waistcoat on and he was off. Then he was back, he forgot his shouts and the floor was cold enough to remind him of that minuscule detail.

He had to sell the horses in order to have real money when they reached Paris. Steam came out of his mouth and his legs were tired. He didn't feel like walking, or being alive. It had been far too many days of mounting and walking, and god if it hurt, hopefully he would have time to rest on the boat.

The farmer to whom he sold the horses was grumpy and he was happy to leave him and his farm behind.

He was already in the center of the city, it wasn't anything incredible, but... nope, it was just not incredible. He was about to turn to the left when he suddenly saw a dressmaker's shop.

There, on a hanger laid a lacy billowing green-blue dress with a white collar. And he had all the intention of ignoring it and crossing the street as if he had seen nothing. But as the words _'Look at me! I'm not exactly Grand Duchess material!' 'She's just not dressed for it!'_ played in his head he found himself returning to the house with a gift to hide in his suitcase.

At midday they stepped out of the bus to board the Tasha with the rest of its passengers. It was a big steam-powered vessel and by sunset it was fair to sea that a The Tasha was at sea.

"Here. I bought you a dress." Dimitri said enthusiastically standing in the corridor before their stateroom and handed the dress to Anya, just to look at her and discover his mistake, the dress was several sizes too large!

"You bought me a tent." She said holding it up and laughing, even Pooka snickered as his mistress poked her head inside the poor dress.

"What're you looking for?" He said feeling his enthusiasm diminish, sicken and die.

"The Russian Circus - I think it's still in here" she said, with laughter in her voice and still examining the dress, he didn't laugh though. He felt his heart at the level of his feet.

"Come on, just put it on." He said with a powerless pitch in his voice before walking away in a huff up the stairs.

"Agh!" He sighed, he had just wanted to help her, he had wanted to give her something she might find precious, he had wanted to help her feel like the princess she was trying to prove she was. But she laughed and proved his efforts vain.

He didn't know, that while Anya was holding up the dress, and thinking of asking for a needle and sewing basket she hummed and danced to herself, very pleased with her gift. He didn't know of the soft smile that curled her lips.

The night had arrived an hour or too ago, Dimitri had cleared his head of his previous disappointment at base of chess and strength of will. Waltz music could be heard from the ballroom which was just under them. One wouldn't be able to tell that the men on the deck noticed it, if not for the young man drumming with his fingers a bit distracted after six games of chess.

"Check mate." Vladimir sighed for the second time in the night when Anya appeared on the deck wearing her new dress all fixed up, for a couple of seconds she played with it but then decided to clear her throat and get their attention to her work of art.

"Wonderful! Marvellous!" Vlad was the first to turn to her, shortly after followed by Dimitri. The former nobleman stood up and approached her excitedly, "And now that you are you're dressed for a ball, you will learn to dance for one as well. Dimitri!" Dimitri saw Anya's incredible transformation and fought the urge to drop his jaw.

"But I'm not very good at it..." He protested halfheartedly, Anya put out her arms to dance and he positioned himself kind of awkwardly to dance with her. She looked so much like a **Sheba** that even though he was actually quite and **Oliver Twist** he forgot it. He knew that there was something weird in the beating of his heart and the sweating of his palms. Something was going to happen, something important and he wasn't sure if he liked it.

"And ... one- two- three." Vladimir stepped back to watch. "One- two- three..." He splitted them apart and repositioned them to scold her. "No, no, Anya. You don't lead. Let him."

"That dress is really beautiful." _Damn, she's so close, am I even breathing?_

"Do you think so?" _Dimitri's eyes are very deep, have they always been this deep? He looks so handsome!_

"Yes." _Think of something to say, think! Say something nice... Nice! Don't say she looks like a **prime article**! _ "I mean it was nice on the hanger but it looks even better on you." He couldn't even remember that the dress didn't actually look like that on the hanger but... _She looks so beautiful, I could kiss her till she can't breathe_. "You... you should wear it."

"I am wearing it." She stated giggling.

"Oh, right of course, of course, you are." Idiot, idiot, idiot! "I'm just trying to give you'a..." _What was the word? What was he talking about?_ He couldn't remember

"Compliment?" She guessed in a sigh, a bit lost, she couldn't say if she had said it aloud or just in her head.

"Of course, yes." He would have said 'Of course, yes' even if she had said that two plus two equaled five and still he wouldn't be able to find a mistake in the sum. _She smiles so brilliantly!_

They were finally swirling into the dance, at first she had to catch on with the rhythm, but little by little they started gaining in grace.

Music pounded in their ears, it wasn't even that loud, but two hearts in love were enough to higher the volume.

He was very conscious of her small frame against his, of her shining eyes and the shy smile that played in her lips, very conscious of the light of the stars under which she looked like a true fairy tale princess... So radiant, so confident, so very beautiful...

Every part of their journey had been planned, from where to start to where to end, from what to do and what to teach to the results of such an instruction. But, one thing escaped his plans. He hadn't planned to look into her eyes and find himself lost, he hadn't planned to breathe so close to her that just a couple of centimetres closer would place his lips upon hers, he hadn't planned the crazy drumming of his heart, nor the blood running madly through his veins.

How could that have happened? His perfect plan... How could he bring his plan to completion now? He should have never danced with her. He was lost...

"I'm feeling a little dizzy." Anya whispered very softly, as gone as he was.

Gradually they started forgetting about dancing, the orchestra was still playing, but they no longer needed it. Slowing down tenderly, as if in a dream.

"Kind of light headed?" He responded vanished in the ocean of her big blue eyes.

"Yeah."

"Me too." He said absently, they had stopped dancing by now, and they were getting closer, painfully slowly. "Probably from the spinning..." Sirens of alarm sounded in his head. He was about to kiss her. He ignored them.

"Maybe we should stop." His conscience said, but he had ignored his conscience for far too many years to start listening to it now.

"We have stopped." She whispered, getting just a bit closer, his breath already gracing her lips.

"Anya, I ..." he took a deep breath. He didn't know what he intended to say.

"Yes...?" _Yes!_ But Pooka barked at him, and suddenly he knew what he had been about to say, about to do. And he was scared, scared of this new feeling, scared of his heart and the way he knew that if the dog hadn't barked he would have kissed her and the con, the ten million rubles, the very reason for him being there would have ended. He would have kissed her in front of Vlad, and he wouldn't have cared one bit, he would have been capable of seducing her then and there, and damn the con, the empress and the world to hell, he would have convinced her to elope with him.

"You're doing fine." He said, his voice strangled, dreading and blessing the mutt for interrupting them before kissing her hand gracelessly and exiting in a rush, leaving behind a very confused Anya.

 _What has just happened?_

 **1920s vocabulary you might not know of:**

 **Sheba= It was a form of saying that a woman was sexually attractive.**

 **Oliver Twist=** **In the 1920s an Oliver Twist** **was a person that was quite a good dancer.**

 **Prime Article= Again, a very attractive woman.**


	10. The Nightmere

**Hullo dears! I know, I know, it's been a long while, but, I have an excuse: exams. I've been studying like crazy and every single free moment went to this chapter, and I know it is not that long, but I do hope it's quite good and quite a reward for the long wait. In mid November, my exams will end and I will be free until March to my heart's content sooo, be patient dears. Oh, and review, I have read and reread the little reviews I have and that inspired me to keep writing, so if you can leave at least a tiny review, it will do good to my soul.**

Anya, Dimitri, Vladimir and Pooka were in the cabin.

Anya was wrapped up in a blanket warm and tired. Yet, not tired enough to not notice that Vlad, who was was braced against the ship's beams, was not weathering the storm at all.

"Oh ... are you all right?" Anya whispered, her voice tender, a tired smile splayed across her face.

"Fine, fine. Just riddled with envy." Vlad answered goodheartedly. "Look at him," he pointed at Dimitri. "He can sleep through anything." Dimitri was supposedly already sound asleep, his backpack eyeing him from the floor, pieces and pieces of the persona he had built over the years to remind him of who he was.

He had always liked sleeping, the servants at the palace once compared him to an hibernating bear and it sort of stayed. Right then, though, he was not asleep. His mind wandered to dangerous fields. Fields filled with 'what ifs' and pink lips just inches from his.

The ship tilted to the side, the timbers groaned and Pooka climbed inside of Dimitri's backpack knocking it over and bringing the jewellery box to the surface for the first time in the journey. Dimitri could hear the clinging of the metal, could recognise it from any other object of his. The box stopped near Anya, he heard her sharp intake of breath, as if something in the back of her mind just clicked but she couldn't quite grasp it yet.

"Pretty jewelry box, isn't it?" Vlad commented eyeing knowingly as Anya crawled it lovingly inside her hands.

"Jewellery box? Are you sure that's what it is?" She asked, as if lost. Lost in some part of her brain where she was trying to find that realisation that was slipping through her fingers.

"What else could it be?" And with that, as a snowflake, the click melted as soon as it graced her fingers, way before she could appreciate its meaning or its beauty.

"Oh, well, something else... Something special... Something to do with a secret." Vlad laughed lightheartedly, reading nothing behind the jewellery box.

"Is that possible?"

"Anything's possible. You taught Dimitri how to waltz, didn't you...?" Pooka, licked Anya's feet, and that was it. No more thoughts of the jewellery box would cross their minds that night. Vladimir climbed into his berth and Anya herself laughed before secured the box in his backpack.

Pooka begged at her feet to be picked up, so she did. Then she climbed into her berth, with her dog cuddled close to her and closed her eyes.

"Sleep well, your majesty." The man said warmly, the berth could not quite resist the weight of him and trapped poor Pooka between him and Anya, so she gave herself the work of freeing her dog. He moved Vlad with her foot and fulfilled her mission.

"Sweet dreams, Pooka." And with that, sleep claimed the room.

There was no more noise, neither more light in the tight cabin they were in.

It was warm, though.

Pleasantly warm. But Dimitri could not say if it was the room that was warm or if it was him. For he felt something decidedly warm starting to burn in his heart. He did not need to feel warmth in his heart. He was fine with the icy breezes that kept it as cold as Siberia. But no matter how he willed the warmth away from him, it stayed there. Growing, tingling, rising hopes that had died long ago.

Second by second turned to minute by minute and from then on, it was an easy and quiet road to reach the hour, that kept going, one, two and three and so on.

Far, far away, in a forgotten and dark part of the underworld, evil watched the scene.

A psychotic gleam shining in his mad dead eyes. His long sharp nails followed an unknown pattern in the air as he waited for the right time to show his servant what his scheme was.

"There she is master, sound sleep in her little bed." Silence was a tiring thing indeed, and the servant, no longer able to tolerate it, opened his mouth so as to cut it.

"And pleasant dreams to you, Princess." His master answered, smiling that lunatic grin that was so familiar to him. "I'll get inside your mind, where you can't escape me." He muttered, but Bartok was still able to hear him.

He waited for him to speak and reveal how he might do what he had just said, how that might help them. But as no more words were uttered, Bartok decided that the most reasonable thing to do, was to look at the reliquary, for that was usually where his master's doings started.

As fast as his gaze fell upon it, a white unknown smoke came out of it. It was the first time, the smoke was not of a polluted green colour but still, he could sense that there was something even more terrible lying behind that white smoke where dizzy images of butterflies revolted in circles.

The smoky images collected around the Reliquary, featuring faces, trees, a lake in a dubious blur. His master chuckled with delight before blowing at the cloud of images, sending it skyward, directly where his prey slept peacefully, unsuspecting of what her fate might be.

Then it was only butterflies what could be seen in the smoky cloud. Silently they slipped through the cabin.

Their first attempt turned out to be Dimitri who was then sleeping on the cold damp floor. But soon they recognised that he was not who they were searching. Floating across the little space there was to float, they found a clue of the scent they were looking for. Her shoes were the first thing of her they reached, and soon they were swirling around Anya.

The white smoke turned green, Anya yawned and as quick as that they entered her mind.

 _A sea of butterflies opened a beautiful world to her. In that beautiful world, she was just awakening to find a little boy looking at her with a playful smile. She didn't know how, but she knew he was her brother. He must be. He was such a little smiling thing._

 _Butterflies swirled around him, and with an inviting gesture, he waved them in her direction before running in between laughs._

 _"Come on!" He said, and so, she followed him, laughing heartily herself._

In the real world, her eyes were closed and just her smile remained the same from her dream. Asleep, she sat up, the smoky butterflies swirling around her head, aiming her to get up of her berth. Once she was out of it, the door opened for her to exit. She was a puppet, driven by smoky white threads across the ship until she reached her doom.

In that very moment, fate decided it was time to intervene through Pooka once more. The door closed soundly and fate's helper woke up just in time to save the day.

 _She felt joyful, running behind her little brother with beautiful butterflies flying around her. The sun warmed her skin and the grass caressed her feet. She felt plenty._

 _Deep inside her, something called out. It was the part of her that was desperate to have a home, and a family to play with. Just like in that very moment._

 _There was something weird in how she made her way to her brother, but she paid no mind to it. And even though something sharp inside of her cried that something was off, she could not and did not want to place what exactly was that. For, she craved familiar love so very much that she banished any suspicious thought to a far, far away land_.

Sleepwalking and following the lead of the smoky butterflies, Anya made her way down the hallway toward the stairs while ship shook violently in the middle of a cruel storm.

Back to the cabin, Pooka whined scratching at the door, barking powerlessly at it, as if that would bring Anya back. It was useless

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. And he could do nought about it. He needed help. Suddenly, the dog turned to Dimitri, without a moment of delay, Pooka jumped the man, he could save her. He was tall and strong and would save his mistress.

Bark. Bark. Bark, bark, bark. _Please wake up!_

Finally, after licking half his face and barking in his ears, the man woke up.

"What, what, what, what, what Pooka? Pooka what?" He was half asleep and his hands rubbed his face to try and clean Pooka's doing. But the dog had no time for it, urgently he tried to point with his head, the empty berth of his mistress. That did it.

"Anya? Anya, Anya...!" Still a bit flustered, Dimitri renationalised that if Anya was not in her berth, then something was not right. He scrambled clumsily from his makeshift bed, bursted out the door and ran towards the stairs. Sadly, the storm, proved to be too much for Pooka who remained stranded at the bottom of the stairs.

 _As she reached him, she was finally able to see three young women at the end of their way. One dressed in a pink swimsuit, the other in a green one and the last one in a blue one. In the same unknown but unquestioned way in which she knew that the little boy was her brother she knew that they were her sisters. They were giggling and waving at her. Heading towards a little stream, one by one they all jumped in.__

Anya had climbed over the railing of the deck and facing a dark ocean of nothingness.

 _"Hello, sunshine!" A man, her father, greeted her. And she felt a scratching urge to jump herself too.__

Holding the guide line, she teetering on the ships railing. The wind blew coldly against her, but she was undisturbed by it, the sun of her dreams warmed her enough not to notice it.

 _"Come into the water!" Her sisters called giggling. Thousands of butterflies flying across the blue warm sky. A sense of happiness covered everything else._

 _"Hello!" She said giggling too._

Anya stood on the ship's railing, holding on to the guide wire, only inches away from what would be a sure death. No one would hear as her body fell and crushed with the water, the storm would block it. Who would see her there? Everyone was asleep.

Jump in and everything would be over. Jump in and she would have her family back, just as she had always dreamt it.

 _"Jump in, jump!" Her father urged her._

 _"Come in!" Her sisters seconded gleefully._

 _"Yeh!" Her brother added in much the same manner._

The stormy sea crashed over the ship, a huge wave hit Dimitri with force. He was destabilised, a little dizzy and scared out of his wits.

"Anya!" He shouted, trying desperately to find her, panic coursing through his veins, still trying to figure out if he had really been washed up into the crow's nest when he suddenly saw her.

"Anya stop!" He shouted with all the power of his lungs. He was terrified. _My god! Anya's going to die! Oh my, she's going to die. She will be dead. Nononono. I can't let it happen. I cannot! I've got to do something! Think. Think. Think you bloody useless bastard! Think or she's dead!_

Looking up into the sky, as if a lost second in the absolute darkness of the sky above his head would give him the way to reach Anya before she leapt into her death. The funny thing, is that it worked. A rope line was just within the reach of his hand. He didn't have much time left to think about any other possibilities, so he grabbed the rope and swung out to catch Anya seconds after her feet had left the floor.

 _Back to Anya's dream, her waving father began to grow at an alarming speed, suddenly the figure that was waving at her, gesturing for her to jump and join her family turned into a hideous beast, with horns protruding out of his head and large fangs that could tear her apart with half a bite._

"Anya, NO!" Dimitri yelled, catching her between his arms.

 _"YES, JUMP!!" The demon in her dreams howled instead. Gesturing for her, flames directly from hell licking his horrid figure. Jump, he yelled, ready to engulf her in one bite. Jump, jump, jump little Anya, jump and all will end._

 _"Ahh!" Anya screamed, terrified, scared out of her wits and still, tempted. If she jumped, everything would be over and some darker part of her wanted to jump just to know what would happen, would she meet her family if she jumped? That part felt so irremediably tempted that even though she was scared and would not jump she took a step. The demon continued to grow while she became more and more like dwarf. Tiny, insignificant, despicable._

 _She no longer stood on soft sweet grass, but on something hard and pointy that harmed her feet, it was pointy and Anya noticed with shivers running down her spine, that she stood on a column of skulls. Flying bat-like creatures swarm in a circle around her, trying to grab her, cracking in cruel laughter at her fear. The demon towered over her on the column of skulls, the harpy-like creatures finally grabbed her all at once._

 _"The Romanov curse." The demon spat, his voice hoarse and his eyes soaked in madness. "Jump, jump!!"_

 _Again she cried out in fear, struggling, kicking and punching, trying to free herself._

"Anya! Anya! Anya wake up, wake up." A familiar voice calls her then. It was Dimitri's and out of nowhere the gigantic hideous hand that was restraining her turned into Dimitri's arms.

And then, she was awake, terrified and trembling between the warmth of his arms. Realisation crashed her, if it hadn't been for him, she would have died, drowned in a black sea. Not a soul to witness it. Dimitri lifted her to the other side of the railing. Her body shaking, hot tears of fear streaming down her eyes. And she was glad Dimitri was there, the memories of the nightmare still too fresh in her mind, she threw her arms around him.

"The Romanov curse...The Romanov curse..." The words of the demon exited her mouth in between mutters and cries.

"The Romanov ... what are you talking about?" He asked her, trying to comfort her by showing interest in what terrified her so much.

"I keep seeing faces ... So many faces." But she was not paying attention to what she was saying, she couldn't understand a thing of what she was saying, the only thing that was clear, was that he was warm and safe and she needed to stay close a little longer.

"It was a nightmare." He said, stroking her hair and starting to walk towards their suite. "It's all right, you're safe now." He kept muttering her sweet nothings, trying to soothe her.

Slowly, he made his way back to the cabin, trying not to lose his balance, for he knew that would not end well for the both of them. Her face was tightly pressed to his chest, her arms bound around his neck. She was drenched from the rain and still, he still could make out the warmth that laid inside her clothes.

When he tried to place her on her berth, she refused to let go, pressing her face to the crook of his neck.

"C'mon, let go Anya. Shh, you have to sleep." But she clung to him, and before he could say anything else, her face was in front of his and her plump lost lips crashed against his. They were warm and willing, just as his own.

What could he do? What would be the right thing to do? Was she even conscious of what she was doing? Could he give in? Could he hold her to his body and steal some of the warmth she was so willingly giving him? Some of the warmth he so desperately craved for?

And for a moment, for a blissful, forgetful, moment, he let go of everything and kissed her with all his might. Holding onto her for dear life. Trying to print something of his in her soul. How sweet her lips were. How sweet her petite form felt pressed agains his. How sweet was the burning flame that heated his passion. How sweet her soft hair felt tangled in his fingers. How sweet was the drumming of her heart against his. How sweet were the sighs that graced his ears. How sweet was what was forbidden.

He was a conman, he was the one to break the rules and take advantage of whatever and whomever he could. And still, he could not take advantage of her. She did not deserve it, she didn't deserve it. He knew she didn't. He knew that then, what was forbidden, was truly forbidden.

How it hurt to let go. How bittersweet were the caresses with which he stroked her hair out of her face.

"Shh, hush now... dear." How sad it was not to be able to call her love, but he knew it was not yet his right to do so. "Sleep, dearest." Her eyes had been closed when she kissed him, they had been closed when he let go and against his every hope, they remained closed. Within seconds, she was asleep and no longer holding onto him.

As slowly as he was able to, he lifted himself from her and went back to his place.

His heart beat so loudly he thought is was going to explode, his lungs burned and in front of his eyes danced the memories of what had just happened. He couldn't take it any longer, it was too difficult to deny what his blood singed. Whatever control he held over himself had failed, it was gone, and he found himself not wanting it back.

He could still taste her on his lips and damn it all to hell he didn't want the ghost of her lips to ever fade from his. How would he leave her with the empress? How could he ever dream of exchanging Anya for the ten million rubles when he knew that she would soon be married off to some nobleman and he would never get the chance of tasting her lips again? How could he keep the con in place the next morning, when she would act as if nothing had happened because probably she would think it was part of her nightmare. How would he stand on his feet tomorrow after tonight?

Dimitri was lost, numb. He was no match for her. Damn her and her beautiful eyes, damn her and her clean laughter, damn her and her acid sense of humor that lured him like a moth to a flame, damn her and her luminous smile, damn her and her soft plump reddish lips. He was lost.

Would he really be able to leave her in Paris? He knew she would convince Sophie and the Dowager Empress herself, and he knew... That he would not be able to leave her in Paris. Because if he did, she would never love him back, every tie he had to her would be severed and he needed that ties so bad, so very badly that he knew that even if the demon himself dragged him to the depths of hell he would still need her to stay with him.

 **Well, dears, just let me know what you thought of this one, it took a long time and maybe the wait will be shorter if more reviews come around, the longer the review, the happier I'l be. And, you know what they say, a happy writer is one that has loads of positive feedback to keep improving... hey! I haven't just invented it, peopple actually say it... uh, yeah... of course. I'm not lying.** ***Crosses her fingers* not lying at all.**


End file.
